Healing Season (2015)
In the highly-underrated 1994 comedy, The Ref, an unlucky cat burglar takes a bickering couple hostage and must endure their sniping, along with other annoying relatives, as they attempt to salvage a tension-filled Christmas Eve. After hearing one too many insults from the elderly matriarch, Denis Leary finally explodes with a barb of his own: “I know loan […]
A Time For Love (2013)
In 1983, Linda Ronstadt released the album What’s New, surprising her fans by recording a disc filled with remakes of pop and jazz standards. It became an unadulterated smash, topping the charts for several weeks and leading to two sequel albums by Ronstadt. It also began a three decade (and counting) run of aging pop […]
David
Some things just make you scratch your head and ask why. The fate of David Ruffin’s 1971 self-titled album is one of those things. Ruffin had embarked on his solo career after an acrimonious split from The Temptations (a separation likely accelerated by Ruffin’s drug-induced erratic behavior). There were Ruffin’s assertions that he should be […]
Truth Of The Matter
He’s not even 25 years old yet, but when you look at, listen to and become familiar with the back-story of Antoine Dunn, it’s clear that he’s an old soul. Born in Cleveland, raised in the church and cultivating a professional rep as a commissioned songwriter practically right out of high school, Mr. Dunn already […]
Church Boy
Selling on the secular charts yet raised in the realm of the sanctified: it’s a typical circumstance that defines many musicians, and what dictates their direction as artists differs from one to the next, since some see returning to spiritual leanings as an embrace of the past or inevitable recognition of their future (or fan […]
The Light of the Sun (2011)
Author, actress, artist extraordinaire: in the span of twelve years, a poet from North Philadelphia flipped a chance meeting with Amir “?uestlove” Thompson (of the legendary hip-hop band, The Roots) into a co-writing credit on a Grammy-Award-winning song (“You Got Me”), a Canadian tour with the legendary musical Rent and a recording contract, becoming one […]
Reel People Presents Golden Lady (2011)
Here’s the punch line up front: This is easily the most exciting release so far this year and certainly the best of the trio of Reel People releases by Oli Lazarus, founder of Papa Records. For nearly a decade the soulful house meets acid jazz hybrid of this UK soul label has seen a virtual […]
Kelly (2011)
After an eight-year hiatus from R&B, Kelly Price returns with a set that is arguably her best since her 1998 debut, Soul of a Woman. Kelly, Price’s sixth studio album, comes nearly a year after a little nugget of a song called “Tired” began to make its way across the internet and eventually climbed the […]
