{"id":22425,"date":"2022-02-06T05:30:12","date_gmt":"2022-02-06T10:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=22425"},"modified":"2022-02-22T09:44:17","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T14:44:17","slug":"album-review-chris-lujan-electric-butter-the-real-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/02\/06\/album-review-chris-lujan-electric-butter-the-real-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Chris Lujan &#038; Electric Butter &#8212; The Real Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-22426\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/electric_butter.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/electric_butter.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/electric_butter-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/electric_butter-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>A couple of months ago, I wrote a <i>Metro Silicon Valley<\/i> feature about <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/08\/raza-del-souls-revolucion-del-vinilo\/\">Raza del Soul<\/a>, a California record label dedicated to preserving old (and celebrating new) Chicano soul music. Headed by J.M. Valle, Raza del Soul does important work that also happens to bring wonderful music to today\u2019s listeners. In addition to reissuing 45 r.p.m. singles, Valle distributes new recordings by current artists and labels like Black Diamond. One of the most recent \u2013 and <b>best<\/b> \u2013 among those is <i>The Real Thing<\/i> from Chris Lujan &amp; Electric Butter (feat. Andre Cruz).<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who appreciates Charles Bradley or Sharon Jones simply must hear this record. The production and arrangement values are so amazingly spot-on that you\u2019ll swear the record was cut four or more decades ago. A real horn section, a taut and soulful band and impassioned vocals (with no Autotune) are just a few of the virtues of the music on the truth-in-labeling <i>The Real Thing<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Vocalist Andre Cruz is out front, while bandleader Lujan \u2013 who writes or cowrites most of the material \u2013 is on hand playing multiple instruments (primarily bass). The band includes guitarist Charlie Hunter and keyboardist Adam Scone; the latter is a veteran of both Sugarman 3 and The Dap-Kings. Cruz adopts a sweet soul falsetto on \u201cSomewhere Else,\u201d sounding like an even more organic Mayer Hawthorne.<\/p>\n<p>Valle may or may not have coined the genre term \u201csouldies,\u201d but it certainly applies here. This music is dripping with authenticity, but none of that would matter if it didn\u2019t sound as great as it does. The sweet soul revival remains in full bloom, and with the support of Valle and distributing for labels like the Black Diamond, the future looks bright indeed. <em>The Real Thing<\/em> &#8212; just that &#8212; is essential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of months ago, I wrote a Metro Silicon Valley feature about Raza del Soul, a California record label dedicated to preserving old (and celebrating new) Chicano soul music. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,65,69,73],"tags":[4767,4766,4716],"class_list":["post-22425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-review","category-soul","category-vinyl","tag-andre-cruz","tag-chris-lujan","tag-raza-del-soul","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","cat-69-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22425"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22577,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22425\/revisions\/22577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}