For over a decade now, Brooklyn songwriter, producer, musician, and label owner Gabriel Roth and a solid family of like-minded musicians have spearheaded the return of true funk and soul music as it was in it’s heyday in the late sixties and early seventies. The label Roth set up with Neal Sugarman, Daptone Records, from the ashes of Desco Records, has become the most influential and highly regarded on the soul and funk scene today. Its family has outgrown the label’s ability to get the work done, creating a scene of associated labels and acts that slowly feed the hunger of its expectant fans.
Ultimately what the group strive for is to produce soul music with genuine passion, authenticity and warmth and I’m glad to say “I Learned The Hard Way” is all of these things. Daptone’s “House Of Soul” studio has become somewhat of a legendary place amongst those wishing to achieve a genuine sound (the already classic album photo shows the band in the building’s back yard). Like Motown’s Hitsville U.S.A., Stax’s McLemore Avenue Studio, Willie Mitchell”s Royal Sound, or the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio before it, what is evident in the recordings in all of these places is a tangible atmosphere as important a player as the musicians. With its vintage equipment, floating recording room and living areas to relax and create in, the House Of Soul seems to have taken on a mantle worthy of legend and its character is evident in the sound of the recording.
There is plenty of detail here as each track is lushly layered with strings, backing vocals, hand-claps or chimes. Characteristic horn arrangements sit on solid bass, neatly plucked guitar, syncopated drums and the orchestration touches lift the music behind Sharon Jones’ commanding vocals, now sitting comfortably in her distinctive style, with her “hmmms” between words, her “ooh yeahs” and her sheer range, ability and power. Displaying its edges perhaps most in the track “Money” there is some wild roughness to Jones’ singing that many of today’s producers would mistakenly smooth out. Other stand-outs, “Better Things”, “The Reason” and “She Ain’t A Child No More” show the benefits of execution from a band that know when to show restraint and control, rather than to push their skill under your nose, each member seeming to understand they are a piece of the puzzle.
Much like the great soul records many of us used to thumb through as children in our parents’ record collections, this is the real deal, classic sound of great soul music the way it should be done. Whilst many wish to attach a “retro” label, this to me is very much the sound of “now” – if only more people could take note and strive to produce records of this standard. I Learned The Hard Way will be very much at home sitting in the prized collection of any music lover.
Daptone's House Of Soul in Brooklyn
Recording on 8 track Ampex tape
House Of Soul recording booths
