THE SOUL OF JOHN BLACK
The Soul of John Black (No Mayo)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

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As fine a marriage of old school funk and modern R&B as you're likely to hear these days. The Soul of John Black is essentially a duo consisting of guitarist/vocalist JB Bigham and bassist Chris Thomas. Both have impressive resumes that explain how something this good happened on the first album. Bigham played with Miles Davis, Dr. Dre, Everlast and Eminem, but his most impressive work was done in the eight years he spent as guitarist for the underrated and definitely fine Fishbone, while Thomas played with Harry Connick, Jr, Daniel Lanois, Joshua Redman, Betty Carter, Ellis Marsalis and Macy Gray. Obviously, these two came in with chops in place. Some of their songs have a near hip-hop flavor while still retaining a melodic structure, most of the songs have strong grooves, if not necessarily deep-n-bouncy, and the ballads are far from cliche. There's so much attention to detail here that the songs never grow old no matter how often you listen. There's a nice little haze of mystique in the overall sound, intriguing and likely to pull you in before you know it. Don't resist. It's worth it. I rarely name a slow tune as the best song on an album, especially one with excellent up tempo songs, but "Time (Losing My Mind)" is so well written it deserves three or four Grammys. Five. Five Grammys. We know how that'll go. This album's too original for consideration.

© 2003 - DJ Johnson