Music Reviews: Sad Daddy Ozark Shine plus Two Vintage Soul Albums
This writer pays attention anytime the ultra-talented Melissa Carper’s name shows up, and it shows up often these days. The singer, songwriter, and upright bass player has been adding to her discography at a steady rate. She has also been recording with Kelly Willis and Brennen Leigh (see the wonderful Wonder Women of Country) and as part of an Arkansas-based aggregation called Sad Daddy, which has been in business since 2010.
The latter group finds Carper collaborating with three equally impressive singers, songwriters, and musicians: Brian Martin, who plays guitar, mouth horns, harmonica, and kazoo; fiddler Rebecca Patek; and banjo and harmonica player Joe Sundell. The outfit, which might sometimes remind you of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, favors acoustic instruments and music that exudes a playful ambiance. Its songs are rooted in country but draw on a wide variety of genres, including jazz, bluegrass, Western swing, jug band, pop, doo-wop, and folk.
Sad Daddy’s fourth and latest CD is the consistently terrific Ozark Shine, which it recorded live in a Nashville studio. Every one of its 12 tracks is a winner, but standouts include Carper’s “Did We Turn Off the Stove?,” about returning prematurely from a road trip to check that the oven is off; Martin’s jubilant “Bossman” and “Milk and Bread,” a sprightly, kazoo-flavored number about stocking up on groceries before a storm; and Sundell and Patek’s sublime, languid “Let’s Go Fishin’” and “Little Ozark Cabin.”
Two Shots of Vintage Soul
Jesper Lindell, Royal. You wouldn’t expect some of the best-ever covers of Southern soul classics to issue from a Swedish native, but Jesper Lindell is here to surprise you. On a 2024 trip to the U.S., he spent two days each at Alabama’s famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studio and Memphis, Tennessee’s Royal Studio, where artists such as Al Green and Ann Peebles have recorded.
Lindell’s Muscle Shoals session produced the first-rate 3614 Jackson Highway, which appeared earlier this year, and now we have Royal, which includes nine more recordings, all with Memphis roots. The singer applies his soul-drenched, gritty vocals to covers of such gems as the Box Tops’ “The Letter,” Peebles’s “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” Elvis Presley’s “Wearin’ That Loved-On Look,” Sam & Dave’s “When Something Is Wrong with My Baby,” and Otis Clay’s “Tryin’ to Live My Life without You.” The latter number, which you might know from Bob Seger’s version, features Lindell in a memorable duet with Canadian singer Frazey Ford.
Johnny Rawls and Dave Keller, Tribute to Soul. Mississippi native Johnny Rawls, who has backed R&B/soul artists such as Joe Tex and Johnny Taylor, has also been issuing fine records under his own name for more than four decades. On this consistently engaging latest CD, which tips a hat to 1960s-era soul, he teams up with his friend Dave Keller, a Vermont-based singer whose prior albums, such as 2018’s Every Soul’s a Star, display affection for that music.
Even casual fans of vintage soul will be familiar with a few of the titles here, including Tex’s “Hold What You’ve Got” and Joe South’s “Walk a Mile in My Shoes,” both of which made large dents in Billboard’s Hot 100 pop chart. But Rawls and Keller dug deeper for most of their material, which includes covers of less well-known but equally excellent songs such as Jimmy Hughes’s “I’m Qualified” and “Neighbor, Neighbor,” Junior Parker’s “Drowning on Dry Land,” and James Carr’s “You Didn’t Know It but You Had Me.”
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Jeff Burger’s website, byjeffburger.com, contains more than four decades’ worth of music reviews and commentary. His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters.