{"id":24776,"date":"2023-03-05T05:30:01","date_gmt":"2023-03-05T10:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=24776"},"modified":"2023-02-01T17:26:52","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T22:26:52","slug":"album-review-johnny-rawls-going-back-to-mississippi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/05\/album-review-johnny-rawls-going-back-to-mississippi\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Johnny Rawls \u2013 Going Back to Mississippi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Johnny Rawls has deep Mississippi roots. Born and raised in small towns in the state, he developed proficiency on a number of instruments, and by his twenties Rawls had joined O.V. Wright\u2019s band as guitarist. Rawls would go on to serve as Wright\u2019s music director, and after Wright\u2019s passing in 1980, Rawls kept the group going as the Ace of Spades Band, touring and backing a wide array of revered blues figures.<\/p>\n

Rawls began a recording career under his own name with the 1996 release Here We Go<\/em>. Since that time, Rawls has continued to release albums at a regular pace, averaging nearly one per year. His style is a hybrid of blues and soul, and his original compositions \u2013 more than 100 to date \u2013 explore that approach.<\/p>\n

Around the time of the release of his 2002 album Lucky Man<\/em>, Rawls was featured on the cover of Living Blues. His 2012 album Memphis Still Got Soul<\/em> won LB<\/em>\u2019s Critic\u2019s Choice Award, and he\u2019s been nominated for several BMAs. His 2018 release, I\u2019m Still Around<\/em> won a Blues Music Award and was also named Living Blues\u2019 soul\/blues album of the year.<\/p>\n

Now in late 2022 Rawls returns with his fourth release for Third Street Cigar Records, a tiny independent label based in Ohio. And the project brings him full circle. Going Back to Mississippi<\/em> is an authentic and heartfelt collection of southern soul. Backed by a supple and sympathetic core band, Rawls is out front on vocals, singing ten originals.<\/p>\n

Recorded in Denmark and Ohio, the album features effective use of a tight horn section. Rawls and co-producer Alberto Marsico ran the sessions in an uncluttered manner, giving the recordings an immediacy, a you-are-there feel that serves the songs well.<\/p>\n

Love is at the core of Rawls\u2019 lyrics; it figures into the titles of three tracks (“Your Love,” “Amazing Love” and “Love Machine”), and it looms prominently in the subject matter of many others. A first-person tale of you\u2019re-gonna-want-me-back, “Reap What You Sew” is among the strongest cuts on Going Back to Mississippi<\/em>. The lead guitar lines are clean and spirited, adorning but never overwhelming the arrangements.<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s title track is propulsive, its passionate rock energy enhanced by Marsico\u2019s gurgling clavinet. “If You Ever Get Lonely” is a romantic, \u201870s style slow jam of the first order, reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions\u2019 “I\u2019m So Proud.” Rawls\u2019 raspy vocal texture adds just the right amount of grit to the smooth proceedings.<\/p>\n

“I Got It” is one of the album\u2019s few tracks that makes use of backing vocals, and even then, it\u2019s done in subtle fashion; this is clearly Johnny Rawls\u2019 show. And that\u2019s how it should be. Variety is a key to the creative success of Going Back to Mississippi<\/em>; each song has its own character. Rawls\u2019 guitar and voice serves as the glue that holds the entire project together. Rawls may be into his seventies, but the man is clearly at the top of his game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnny Rawls has deep Mississippi roots. Born and raised in small towns in the state, he developed proficiency on a number of instruments, and by his twenties Rawls had joined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24777,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65,69],"tags":[5068],"class_list":["post-24776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","category-soul","tag-johnny-rawls","cat-9-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24776","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=24776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24778,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24776\/revisions\/24778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}