Posts Tagged ‘raphael saadiq’
End-of-Week Mixtape: #FridaySoul!
Dear Arts Desk readers,
As approximately 62 of you know, I’ve been spinning a Friday Soul mix via the old Twitter account. Man is it groovy! I’m even linking to videos. The playlist so far:
- Otis Redding, “Shake” (live at Monterey Pop, 1967)
- Raphael Saadiq, “Let’s Take a Walk”
- Laura Nyro, “And When I Die”
- James Brown, “Super Bad”
- Buddy Guy, “Feels Like Rain”
- Mofro, “Ho Cake”
- James Cotton, Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter, “Got My Mojo Workin’” (hey, we’re branching out)
- The Impressions, “Long Long Winter”
- Rod Stewart, “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher”
- Bettye LaVette, “You Don’t Know Me At All”
- Van Morrison, “I’ve Been Working”
- Curtis Mayfield, “People Get Ready” (some live version from, I think, 1974)
Eclectic, see, yet accessible. But it ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings! (No Aretha jokes, if ye please.) Just point the browser of your choice in this direction, make like a lemming, and follow along. Suggestions are appreciated. As are witty remarks concerning my inclusion of Rod Stewart…or the fact that a number of these tracks don’t necessarily qualify as soul.
Below the jump: the remainder of the mix, updated incrementally.
Last Week: Raphael Saadiq, John Legend, and Dr. John
Saadiq/Legend at DAR Constitution Hall; Dr. John and the Lower 911 at Blues Alley
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Raphael Saadiq and Dr. John are both on tour at present, peddling different brands of regressively delightful music to packed, loyal audiences. The Doctor (Mac Rebennack, to get technical) and Saadiq (né Wiggins) wear their influences on their sleeves and dress in full-on vintage: Rebennack in voodoo regalia, Saadiq in a chickadee-yellow suit and oversize horn-rims.
The distinction, of course, is that the Saadiq’s throwback pose is provisional; the Doctor’s is dynastic.
Headliner John Legend has been filling houses for Saadiq during the pair’s national tour that closed two days ago. That’s fine, if it means more people listening to Saadiq—but mainly it means sitting through most of Evolver after the livelier performer (with the better band) has already left the stage. Legend struts and takes his cheese seriously; Saadiq dances and seems to acknowledge that the salvation/procreation dyad of contemporary R&B is about as synthetic as a modern soulman who channels Curtis Mayfield.
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