Raphael Saadiq looks to the Past

Last week I had the opportunity to attend an intimate Raphael Saadiq performance being taped for Vh1 Soul's Soul Stage series (thanks Sunny & Mike). While I've never considered myself a big Saadiq fan per se, I have enjoyed Tony Toni Tone as well as Lucy Pearl so I decided to give it a shot. With Rodeo in tow, we headed down to Chelsea for what we hoped would be a good show.

After a bit of a waiting period (that's a television taping for ya!) The show was finally underway and I'll be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by how good the music was. It seemed that of the new material he performed, they were all throwbacks to a time when soul music was real and struck a chord with listeners. A time long ago. This has me quite excited to hear the rest of the album. I just hope its as good on the CD and not over-produced. But if I remember correctly, Saadiq is a huge fan of bands and real instruments so fingers crossed the LP is the same, if not, damn close to the live show.

The mini-concert was jam packed with musical trips down memory lane featuring a TTT medley of 'Lay Your Head on my Pillow', 'It Never Rains in Southern California', 'Anniversary', 'That's All I Ask of You' & 'Just Me and You'. He also performed the Lucy Pearl hit 'Dance Tonight'. (Sidebar - his female background singer was a great Dawn Robinson stand-in. She has a really strong voice and an amazingly warm tone. As a fan of vocalists I had to throw this in.)

Of his new songs, the stand-outs for me were 'Calling', a doo wop ditty clearly influenced by the soul music of the late 50s- early 60s. Think Little Anthony and the Imperials - and yes, he went there. What made it different though, was he started with spanish singer. This made you think he was performing a traditional latin song then all of a sudden everything changed and the song took off in whole new direction. It seemed a bit strange at first but I appreciated it. It was something different and somehow worked pretty well. Another song I enjoyed was 'Love That Girl', which sounded like early Motown. I could totally see this song be released by Berry Gordy with his offically stamp of approval with Eddie Kendricks on the vocal. The last original song he did was an uptempo song (can't remember the name of it) about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This one brings to mind the Sun Records hit parade and the song featured an awesome jitterbug breakdown. By this point I was really grooving.

During the show Raphael sang, danced, played guitar, played bass and did a three song encore. He did not hold back. All in all, I totally enjoyed the experience and I'm anticipating the release of the full album "The Way I See It" on September 16. Hopefully after I hear the finished product, I'll still be just as satisfied. Perhaps it will even provide a few monday morn Pix o' the Week.