Whatever happened to soul crooners. From the heights of the 1970s when Al Green and Marvin Gaye, thru the 1980s and Luther Vandross and Babyface, to the dregs of today where Maxwell is mistaken for a giant, and the lines between Gospel and soul man have disappeared.
2010 was a terrible year for soul, the problem being non-descript vocalists and non-existence songs. The year dithered and dathered and always ended up with some Gospel singer and r. kelly. It took till a late release Lost In Time for a really good album to be released. 2011 has been the same only add in the eccentric Frank Ocean and remove r. kelly,
I do mean exactly the same, as Anthony Hamilton's recently released Back to Love is a beacon of hope while we wait for soul to figure out what to do next. Hamilton began his career singing back up to the Sainted D'Angelo on D'Angelo's Voodoo and then, in the new music apprenticeship, singing choruses in hip hop songs.
It worked, and a couple of hits later, Hamilton is back with yet another one, or maybe not a hit, it hasn't charted, but certainly a potential hit. He comfortably maneuvers from Philly soul on "Back To Love" to fully orchestrated piano ballad "Baby Girl" to a more blues than rhythm "Woo" and not much Gospel at all though at least two songs evokes God, including the masterful "Pray For Me" which finds himself in deep, deep trouble.
Despite his kinship with rappers like Game, Hamilton is a Southern gentleman, this is romance at PG-13 , evoking his woman in terms uxorious and obsequious. He knows his audience and panders to it, but, on song after song, crisp smart production by the likes of Dr. Dre and Babyface, assure they aren't claustrophobic, and while the lyrics are asinine by definition, the songs, which Hamilton co-wrote, are pretty damn good for the genre, never devolving into straight u love jams.
No, it's not d'Angelo. But Hamilton will do for now.
Grade: B+