“...get a little positivity and listen to good music.”
January 22, 2018 6:49 PM   Subscribe

Curtis Harding's Psychedelic Soul [GQ] “A veteran singer who cut his teeth over a decade ago doing backing vocals for Cee-Lo, Harding seems to do everything with soul: The way he talks about his passion for film, style, and music, is soulful. The ease with which he rocks a Saint Laurent jacket is soulful. Most importantly though, his music has soul in every note, every guitar lick. If soul is an "experience," unable to be confined by descriptors, the title track from Harding's new album, Face Your Fear, is an excellent illustration of it. The groove is slinking and relaxed, Harding riding the beat just behind the drums, delivering every word with an unwavering confidence, but also a very human tenderness. His voice never raises above a whisper, but the quiet energy he packs into every syllable will have you hearing his melodies in the back of your mind for days. It's the rare song that could soundtrack a wedding or a funeral, at once celebratory, sad, groovy, and of course, very soulful.”

• Curtis Harding Faces His Fears With Soul [The Ringer]
“The music is traditional in form, but the function of it is more lively, youthful, and adventurous. And more purposeful than more vibey, structureless (and totally fine!) mainstream R&B tends to be. Something about the nature of crafting classic soul in the present makes it easy to slide from homage into imitation. More so if the artist in question is adept at it, attending to every stretched vowel or funky guitar riff or layered female backing vocal. It was difficult water for Harding to tread on his first album. Before the release of his debut, Harding told Spin about his influences: Albert King, the Everly Brothers, and Ronnie Dyson. Harding said that if he kept on, he might’ve taken up the whole interview. The standards that go unnamed here are the ones that are easy to spot traces of: Mayfield, Sam Cooke, Smokey Robinson. But on “The Drive,” which sounds like a restored ’72 Chevelle fishtailing along the surface of the moon, he indulges expressive whims like someone who’s spent a fair amount of time with with Cole Alexander, singer-guitarist for audacious garage rockers the Black Lips.”
• Curtis Harding Wants Everyone to Chill Out and Listen to Some Soul Music [Pigeons & Planes]
“My story is one that started a long time ago. My mom’s a gospel singer, she took us around. I was born in Saginaw, Michigan. My mom is from Philadelphia, Mississippi by way of Mobile, Alabama. My dad’s from Tennessee. My dad moved to Michigan to work in a plant, that’s where he met my mom. My dad is 88 years old, born in the 1930s, he is 27 years older than my mom. I was born in Saginaw, Michigan and at the age of three, I moved to Alabama. My mother was part of the church, an evangelical sector that was originally people that came from Sweden or whatever to America—they were like pilgrims, you know? My mother was involved in all that, and that’s why they got into church playing. It’s pretty trippy man, cause I have Amish friends, I have all kinds of friends, all over the country. But it’s crazy because that’s how I got started, going church to church, just singing. My sister, when she got older in high school, she started rapping and formed a rap group and that’s how I got into hip-hop. Her and her group actually won some talent shows and started touring and doing TV shows back in the ‘80s. So when I was a kid, I started getting into that whole scene. My oldest sister was into the Beatles and hair metal, so I started listening to different music with her. That’s how I got turned onto music, it was through my family. I had a huge melting pot of music when I was growing up and realized that it wasn’t just one thing.”
• Curtis Harding Talks Finally Teaming With Danger Mouse on Soulful Single 'Wednesday Morning Atonement' [Billboard]
“The result is Burton's production work on "Wednesday Morning," the the first single from Harding's -Anti Records full length debut, Face Your Fear, out Oct. 27. The dreamy, synth-drenched soul track finds Harding urging, "Hey mother, I've been saving/ Working here all alone/ Trying to build a happy home/ So most people are never given/ A second chance to be a better man maybe." His soaring falsetto, overlaid with trippy Mellotron strings and Burton's signature wall of mood make for a soothing, funky exploration on what Harding says is a track with a slippery double meaning. "That was the first song we started working on to see if we could do a record and Brian already had this idea, so he laid down a beat and the Mellotron strings and then I came up with the melody and started writing what came to mind," says Harding, who ended up recording the entire album at Burton's 30th Century Studio in New York. "The lyrics have two meanings, one explains why I've been away so long and what I’ve been doing -- this was my second album and it's been a couple years and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do -- and I thought it would be cool to give it a double meaning," he says. "The other is about an estranged father who is away working and hadn't seen his kids for a while... Maybe he and the mother are not on the best terms, maybe the kids don't want to speak to him. It also just speaks about my musical journey at that point."”
• Curtis Harding - "Wednesday Morning Atonement" [YouTube]
• Curtis Harding - "Need Your Love" [YouTube]
• Curtis Harding - "Welcome To My World" [YouTube]
• Curtis Harding - "Cast Away" (Live in Echo Park) #JAMINTHEVAN [YouTube]
• Curtis Harding - "On and On" [YouTube]
• Curtis Harding - "Drive My Car" (Wilcox Sessions) [YouTube]
posted by Fizz (3 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
I’ve been listening to this album for a few months, it’s a real treat! You’d think it came straight out of he 70s but it doesn’t feel like a parody. Highly recommended.
posted by furtive at 7:44 PM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


I recently got this album after hearing Go As You Are. It's fantastic. I've been recommending it to everyone.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 11:16 PM on January 22, 2018


Finally, the correct answer to the askme question I posted after his first album came out. Thanks for this post. Harding is something special.
posted by zyxwvut at 8:37 AM on January 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


« Older An oral history of London warehouse parties...   |   Whatd'ya do if you're young and white and jewish? Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments