Monday, November 8, 2010

John Legend & The Roots - Wake Up! (2010)

A welcome return, given these troubled times, for the singer who has become the beacon of modern, intelligent, inspirational soul music, and with a collection of smouldering, socially aware songs that manage to sound both angry and optimistic at the same time. That they are is hardly surprising, given that, with the exception of the final track, Shine, every song is a leftfield soul protest classic from the 60s or 70s, from a stellar selection of artists including Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway, Curtis Mayfield, McFadden & Whitehead and Bill Withers. And Legend has been shrewd enough to go for songs that might not be their best known but are surely among their most interesting, hence a series of often-neglected gems, of the calibre of Hang On in There, Compared to What and Wake Up Everybody, are given the sort of prominence they always deserved.
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John legend and the Roots - Hard Times

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