soul
Streets of Your Town: this week’s concerts, with Shuggie Otis, Sky Ferreira, Wale, and more
Streets of Your Town: This week's best concerts, from rock to jazz to rap to everything else, including Shuggie Otis, Sky Ferreira, Wale, and more. More
Streets of Your Town: this week's concerts, with Leonard Cohen, Sufjan Stevens, T.I., and more
Streets of Your Town: This week's best concerts, from rock to jazz to rap to everything else, including Leonard Cohen, Sufjan Stevens, T.I., and more. More
Streets of Your Town: This week's concerts, with David Byrne & St. Vincent, Jay-Z, Corin Tucker, and more
Streets of Your Town: This week's best concerts, from rock to jazz to rap to everything else, including David Byrne & St. Vincent, Jay-Z, Corin Tucker, and more. More
Streets of Your Town: This week's concerts, with All Tomorrow's Parties, Stanley Clarke, Metric, and more
Streets of Your Town: This week's best concerts, from rock to jazz to rap to everything else, including All Tomorrow's Parties, Stanley Clarke, Metric, and more. More
With 'Write Me Back,' R. Kelly scores a retro-soul triumph
But Kelly has responded deliberately to the new vogue, first with 2010’s superb Love Letter, and now with a follow-up, titled, what else, Write Me Back, out today on Jive. And in doing so, he’s got a concept in hand that seems heartfelt rather than gimmicky. It’s resulted in what might be the most simply charming music he’s made, and it’s something he’s needed for a while. More
'At Last' said so much, though perhaps not enough, about the great Etta James
"At Last," a Mack Gordon/Harry Warren standard first popularized by Glenn Miller, tells of love long waited for and finally found. James's terse, shimmering version splits the difference between toughness and vulnerability. As she sings it, Etta James, who passed away late last week, is overcome with joy, but there's an acknowledgment of all that came before—the cold expanse of loneliness, the opposite of bliss. Shooting stars are also burning up into nothingness. And even if "At Last" proved to be a crossover smash because of its overt romance, there remains a hardness to it. James' is a lived-in performance, and she was just the right age to channel both fairy tales and cynicism in a three-minute side. More
After more than 40 years of anonymity, singer Charles Bradley finds his voice, and becomes one of soul's greatest discoveries
Bradley isn’t Solomon Burke, a titan of soul who found a new, boutique audience late in life; and he isn't Howard Tate, a young star who was buried in decades of personal and professional disappointments before being excavated for a comeback just before his death. Bradley’s No Time for Dreaming (Dunham Records) is the culmination of nearly five decades spent trying to make it, but always hovering in that gray area between professional musician and relentless wannabe.
“I was gonna never give up because I love music," Bradley said in an interview with Capital. "It just took time for somebody to find me. But I was praying for it all my life, for this opportunity. And this came later in my age, it just hit me. In a lot of ways, I still don't really believe it. I tried so hard.” More
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