Skip to main content

Donny Hathaway

80

Donny Hathaway

Donny Hathaway
 
Voices such as Donny Hathaway’s come along maybe once a decade. Before his brief but influential career was cut short by suicide in 1979, Hathaway proved himself a maestro of protest soul who effused equal amounts of political anger and romantic tenderness. With that being so, it’s a curious fact that despite his vocal gifts and his acknowledged influence on the neo-soul movement of the early 2000’s, his catalogue is often ignored. His debut album, 1970’s Everything is Everything, is equal parts spiritual and political. The album is a stirring introduction to Hathaway’s many vocal and songwriting influences (gospel, jazz, classical) and lay the ground-work for where he strove to take them. 1971’s self-titled, Donny Hathaway, consists mainly of his redefining interpretations of the current Top 40 at that time, like his shiver-inducing versions of the Leon Russell/Carpenters tune “A Song for You” and the Hollies’ “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.” The real highlight of Hathaway’s discography, though, is his the 1972 live album, simply titled Live. This was my introduction to Hathaway thanks to my friend and bass player in my band who was amazed at the bass solo on the last track of the album, he had to share with me the amazement that is this album. With stirring covers of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” the album would be great as a covers album, but it’s album's aforementioned closer “Everything is Everything” which highlights the talents of the band-members through separate solos. These solos prove Hathaway and his band were truly soul legends whose influence can still be felt in today’s music. 1973’s Extension of a Man was his ambitious, “heavy” album, featuring the epochal “Someday We’ll All Be Free” and the LP’s grandiose orchestral opener, “I Love the Lore,He Head My Cry (Parts 1 & 2)." 1980 gave us the collaboration album with Roberta Flack, Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway. In 2013 Rhino records did an amazing job of capturing Hathaway with the box set, Never My Love: The Anthology, which I highly recommend for the die-hard fans out there. The music is timeless and I wish he would’ve stayed…
It’s Donny Hathaway

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Band

19 The Band The Band First known as the Hawks, the Band got their initial fame as Bob Dylan’s backing band. Remember when Bob Dylan sold out and went electric, angering fans so much that they called him “ Judas ”? Well, you can thank all of that to the Band. For a band that sounds so fucking American (seriously- no band has done the whole Americana roots music better than the Band) it’s pretty funny most of them were Canadian. After finally branching out on their own in 1968, the Band would release some of the best music ever recorded… and if you thought the Beatles had a hell of a run- check out the Band’s discography: 1968’s Music From Big Pink , 1969’s self-titled The Band , 1970’s Stage Fright , 1971’s Cahoots , 1972’s live-album Rock of Ages , 1973’s Moondog Matinee , 1975’s Northern Lights -Southern Cross , and 1977’s Islands. Lynard Skynard may have taken the crown for greatest southern rock band, but for a band full of Canadians and Americans, the Band really embraces a
Post a Comment
Read more

Crystal Castles

61 Crystal Castles Crystal Castles If you ever wondered what it would sound like if the video-game character Mario was catapulted through a plate-glass window- you'd get close to describing Crystal Castles. Cut up vocals and soothing waves of synth, live shows known for "fan riots, crowd surges, and metal barriers destroyed" Toronto electronic-punk-bleep-pop duo Crystal Castles is music that could only be made in the post-modern / post-millennium era, with a fan base that remembers the 8-bit era. Some dance music is meant to be played in the dark, but few dance bands bring their own darkness. This is dance music for sociopaths. Crystal Castles is the brain-child of Ethan Kath. The band began as a Kath solo project in 2003, but the producer recruited a 15-year-old Alice Glass to add vocals. Glass recorded rough soundcheck vocals for five tracks, which were secretly recorded by an en engineer, and Kath uploaded the material un der the name Crystal Castles. After rele
Post a Comment
Read more

FKA twigs

99 FKA twigs FKA twigs FKA twigs is the brain-child of Tahliah Barnett. Under her stage-name of FKA twigs (which I'll just refer to her as twigs from here-on-out) she has released three EP’s (2012’s EP1 , 2013’s EP2 , and 2015’s incredible M3LL155X EP )  and two albums (2014’s LP1 & 2019’s Magdalene ). With someone with such a small catalogue, it's amazing how dense and rich this music is. Before Billie Eilish made the whole whisper-singer mainstream last year, twigs was already releasing down-tempo-trip-hop-whisper-sung music back in 2012. That is when she released her debut, EP1 . twigs hqd been studying dance since the age of six, but deep down, she knew she always wanted to be a recording artist so she eventually left the dancing behind (in a way [dance has always been a big part of her project]) to focus on her music project. However, limiting to just a music project is doing it an injustice in labeling. It’s more of a visual-dancing-art project. Ever ev
Post a Comment
Read more