soul Archive
04 Jul 2016
Hundred-word Reviews for July 2016, Part 1
Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans. Today kicks off another of my occasional week-long extravaganzas in which I post five reviews each business day, each exactly 100 words. Some […]
10 Jun 2016
The Bo-Keys: Today’s New School of Old-school (Part 2)
Continued from Part One… Bo-Keys producer/bandleader Scott Bomar says that the bulk of the work on Heartaches by the Number took the form of pre-production. “I spent well over a […]
09 Jun 2016
The Bo-Keys: Today’s New School of Old-school (Part 1)
One of the most intriguing album releases of this year doesn’t sound like a new record, not at all. Recorded in Memphis, Tennessee and featuring veteran musicians from the city’s […]
08 Jun 2016
The Digs: Travel to the Beat of a Different Drum
“We’re pulling from a lot of places at once, trying to create our own thing,” says Ram Mandelkorn, guitarist and songwriter for Asheville-based soul/jazz/funk outfit The Digs. “And we’re getting […]
01 Jun 2016
Album Mini-review: Mayer Hawthorne — Man About Town
File next to: Marvin Gaye, The Dramatics, Fitz and the Tantrums On his 2009 debut, Detroiter Mayer Hawthorne showed just how developed an artist he was; that album – wholly […]
01 Jun 2016
Album Mini-review: Janiva Magness — Love Wins Again
File next to: Bonnie Raitt, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Shemekia Copeland Though she’s been making albums for decades now, blues vocal powerhouse Janiva Magness was initially an interpreter of other composers’ […]
17 May 2016
The New Mastersounds Schedule Residency at Brooklyn Bowl
Dynamic funk/jazz fusion quartet The New Mastersounds recently came to Brooklyn Bowl for a three-day, four-show residency April 14-16. The group, founded in 1999 in Leeds, England, has been doing […]
16 May 2016
Blues Vocalist Janiva Magness Opens Up on ‘Love Wins Again’
Though award-winning blues vocalist Janiva Magness has recorded a dozen albums to date (her latest, Love Wins Again, was released April 8), she came to songwriting long after her career […]
09 May 2016
Album Mini-review: Charles Bradley — Changes
File next to: James Brown, Sharon Jones & the Dap-kings, Eli Paperboy Reed On Charles Bradley‘s third full length, the “screaming eagle of soul” shows himself to be a fascinating […]
26 Apr 2016
Rehabilitating Herbie, Part 2
Continued from Part One… “In the ‘60s, Herbie Mann wanted to appeal to younger audiences,” observes Cary Ginell, author of several books including The Evolution of Mann: Herbie Mann and […]