Michael Lington - Soul Appeal [CD]

Forget what you think you know about Michael Lington. Now that he's gone mainstream with his career and consciousness shifting new album Soul Appeal, he's full steam ahead like no one's ever heard him before, blazing a fresh, innovative road for himself with a freewheeling immersion into the heart of the 60's and 70's Memphis Soul vibe. Soul Appeal features nine vibrant, hip and contemporary yet drenched-in-retro-cool originals (all co-written with Barry Eastmond) and imaginative re-workings of the King Curtis classics "In The Pocket" and a blazing, horn section infused "Memphis Soul Stew." The latter includes a playful rap by Teddy Campbell that approximates the way Curtis introduced each instrument into the mix on the original recording. Soul Appeal also includes two fresh vocal ballads with renowned Grammy nominated vocalists that take everyone back to the days when Sam Cooke and Wilson Pickett reigned: "Gonna Love You Tonight" (featuring Kenny Lattimore) and "Leave Me You" (co-written and sung by Ryan Shaw). Michael says it best. "This was the music that made me want to play the sax, all of that American R&B and instrumental funk becoming part of my soul in my mid-teens," he says. "I'm not trying to discount any of my other records because I like them all, but my approach here was fresh and very different than anything I had done before. When you enter a space like this, where you're by design tracking with a live band for the first time instead of building tracks layer by layer, you don't know what's going to happen. What made this so magical was that I was there in the trenches with the band for the entire process, working out arrangements and parts as we went along. I wanted to just completely let go and let it flow all the way - which opened me up and liberated me as a player. The result might not be perfect in the conventional sense, but it's not supposed to be. This record is all about feel and vibe."