Anderson East offers an almost-too-perfect R&B throwback
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Version 0 of 1. Old-time soul and R&B is a classic muscle car that someone discovered in an abandoned warehouse: Give it a fresh coat of paint, an oil change and a full tank of gas, and you’ll find the thing still runs hot. Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, JD McPherson — they’ve all been taking the sound for a spin lately, and they’re finding receptive audiences. Another young exponent, 27-year-old Anderson East, offered his take Tuesday night at a sold-out Jammin’ Java. To look at East, born in Alabama and based in Nashville, you’d be hard-pressed to predict he’d be such a naturally ebullient frontman. Handsome and unassuming, wearing a dark sweater over a button-down shirt, he electrifies as soon as the band hits. His curly mop of hair narrows over his forehead and shakes freely, Jerry Lee Lewis-style. And then out comes a singing voice — Wilson Pickett-like in its grit and earthiness, Otis Redding-like in tenderness — that signals very clearly that its owner is doing exactly what he was born to do. Over 90 minutes, East, backed by a terrifically professional six-piece ensemble that included keys and horns, played the 10 songs from his major-label debut album, “Delilah,” plus a handful of well-curated covers. At the risk of sounding churlish, it was sometimes hard not to mistake his original material for cover versions, as the songs were so evocative of their sonic touchstones. The dramatic horn arrangements, the churchy sounds of the Hammond B-3 organ, the funky grooves — East’s compositions were poured into molds created decades ago at Memphis stables like Hi Records and Stax. The not-exactly-gallant father-to-son advice found on “Find ’Em, Fool ’Em, Forget ’Em” was delivered in the same tempo and idiom as the great Ann Peebles’s “Somebody’s on Your Case.” “Quit You” was fashioned from Redding’s “Mr. Pitiful”; “Satisfy Me,” from Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour.” All of this was done passionately and unabashedly. When East salted in Eddie Floyd’s “Knock on Wood” or Van Morrison’s showstopping ballad “Tupelo Honey,” the transitional effect was that of — take your pick — seamlessness or sameness. East revealed other dimensions of his character, however. Judging from the solo guitar-and-voice renditions of “What a Woman Wants to Hear” and “Lying in Her Arms” (on which his bandmates progressively rejoined him, creating a beautifully layered crescendo), there’s a mild-mannered singer-songwriter lurking inside him. Such hints of versatility bode well for East’s potential to survive the passing of a neo-R&B revival. |