God, hearing this takes me back to catching English singer James Hunter at a place in Streatham called Hideaway in 2012.
Hunter’s voice is uncannily a reminder of the glories of Sam Cooke. Being able to inhabit that domain is a feat in itself. But c’mere, there’s more.
Further down the road, six years later I was in Hackney at a studio called The Premises there to interview Kandace Springs when I bumped into JC and his American friend and we had a brief chat. It was a beautiful day. The sun was splitting the stones.
Van Morrison who Hunter has often opened gigs for on tour guests significantly on one of the album’s highlights, ‘Ain’t That A Trip.’
Interesting that Michael Buckley is one of the 6, the Jerry Bergonzi loving Irish saxist whose Ebb and Flow was so good last year here on a bari. ‘Gun Shy’ has terrific keys from Andrew Kingslow and rippling horns.
Hunter’s eleventh studio album, it’s 40 years since the now 63-year-old debuted.
Something as miraculous as the second coming – far more than any old conjuring trick with bones – songs are the soul brother’s own and this factor lifts the whole thing and you get a 360 degree personality.
Love the timpani work on ‘Here and Now’ plus the Jimmy Reed inspired Van feature and just about everything here. His wishing well does not run dry. Reluctant to switch the album off – “only a fool knows how to say goodbye…”
- … out on the road dates coming up include 221, London tonight;
a hometown gig in Colchester on the 20th; Oran Mor, Glasgow on the 26th; the Cluny, Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the 28th; Brudenell, Leeds the 29th; Storey’s Field Centre in Cambridge on the 30th; The Crossing, Birmingham
on the 31st.
