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5/14/2004

Arthur Shuey

Soul blossomed early and spectacularly in Memphis, so much so that big labels frequently sent their most promising artists there to record (Wilson Pickett received and waxed "In the Midnight Hour" there, for instance). It wasn't New Orleans, but it was big. Now we've got a soul revival going on, showing itself via early disco singles reappearing in sleazy bar jukeboxes and in more enjoyable, hipper fashion on underground radio, in private homes and on bandstands. That should make reasonable listeners think of Memphis again. Well, here's a centerpiece modern Memphis soul release. Largely instrumental, heavy on overdriven organ and enthusiastic horn sections as part of the rhythm section, it is the music about which Rufus Thomas commented several decades ago, "It will make you want to do something nasty, like rub chicken grease all over your clean, white shirt."

There's very little that jumps out as spectacular or innovative here. There's not supposed to be. Deep Soul documents the ghetto streets that are, or at least were, common to all big American cities. It's one story, sold by a composite character incorporating the perspectives of a lot of recording artists and songwriters from Memphis, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Chicago, and even a little input from the sugar chiffon soul crowd in Detroit. When it seemed that they'd said it all by the mid-seventies, the music started to fall on deaf ears, and then the music metastasized into disco, and a lot of us started to wish for deaf ears, but that's another story. The story here is that those streets still have the same rhythm, and there is more to say and more to explore about it, and the mainstream soul groove still works, and these ten cuts ("Coming Home Baby," "Deuce and a Quarter," "Seven and 7," "Spanish Delight," "Under the Table," "Back at the Chicken Shack," "Doin' It to Death," "I Remember Stax," "My Country Loves Me" and "Bling Bling") are guaranteed to happen for you. Treat yourself well. Find and buy this record.