Whatever It Takes

Description

A precursor of the English neo-soul wave and a companion of Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison, Etta James, and Willie Nelson, the former worker from Colchester has cultivated, since his first solo album …Believe What I Say (1996), his unquenchable passion for the rhythm and blues and soul of the 50s and 60s. With his heart-wrenching, raspy voice, the tortured singer makes it a point to convey deep poetic testaments by revisiting this vintage sound that was discovered four years ago by the legendary House of Soul in Brooklyn. Like with Hold On! (2016), his previous album, the crooner exiled himself to California at the Penrose studios in Riverside, the Californian branch of Daptone, to record the ten original tracks of Whatever It Takes, his seventh album. This scorching opus from The James Hunter Six subtly combines the emotional fragility of the soulman with an analog production worthy of the genre's golden age.