Classic Soul Revisited
-
Artist:
-
Album:
-
Track:
Raphael Saadiq is going through a phase. But that's fine, since it seems most musicians & artists do so throughout their careers. This phase of Raphael's is divining his influences. His third proper solo album 'The Way I See It' is a total tribute to the R&B soul icons of the '60s and '70s like The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, James Brown and Marvin Gaye, among others.
But really Raphael's previous albums have emulated all the early soul and r & b sounds. He just updated them for a modern context. And Saadiq finally decided to formally pay homage to his musical heroes on this new album. Here is the first single 'Love That Girl' performed live:
And here's the official video for the song(embedding was disabled on all available songs on youtube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1k7lNMyRpw
Up top with the red button you can hear the deliciously sexy song 'Let's Take A Walk'. Raphael just oozes sexuality and he shows off his soul crooners' chops in a most sensual style. There are alot of very upbeat tempos on this album but there's also some great slow burners too like 'Oh Girl':
This is a great album for a romantic evening at home but I will say I have to be in the mood to listen to it, since it's so classic soul oriented. I'm not a big classic soul fan, although I do enjoy it periodically. But you all know how emotion based music really is for most of us. I fell hard for this album when I first heard it but it wore thin with me after the first week of listening to it.
You can listen to six of the album's songs in full on his myspace page here:
Comments (11)
I am so embarrassed to say I had no idea who Mr. Saadiq was.
Thanks for posting this August.....
On a quick (very quick) look at his older stuff, I am thinking that Stan may be interested. I will show him and let you know what he thinks. He's all about the hip hop/R&B these days.
Ni-i-i-i-i-i-i-ice...
*Annie* It's ok dear. I should've given a bit of a synopsis of his resume in my review. He started out w/Tony Toni Tone, then was part of Lucy Pearl(w/Dawn Robinson formerly of En Vogue & DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, before going solo.
That's cool that Stan is getting into hip-hop/r&b these days. I'll be interested to know what he thinks.
*MTK* cool you're diggin' this.
damn august, you just emcd'd me! This just shot up my list of albums to get, thanks!
Haha, great Kev. Glad I could turn you on to this. It truly is a very well done album.
daaaang! man, one of his shows would make for a great date night. now he just needs to get his ass to the northwest!
I'm sure he'll be there soon, if he hasn't been there already since this album was released 9/16/08. He's originally from Oakland but now lives in Southern CA, so he's not far away(his myspace says N.Hollywood)!
this is a damn fine post, Augustusness. and like Rawkiddoh, you just EMCD'd me! i love it, i'm on board, going to go find me this album.
What I like best is how you are honest! Nice work.
Thanks *ilay*. Looks like another EMCD effort has been made on my part. Glad I could turn you onto this.
*Cody* why am I not surprised you showed up on this post, haha! Thanks, hope you enjoy it.