Details
Track Listing
1. Hard Way, The
2. Tell Her
3. Don't Do Me No Favors
4. Carina
5. She's Got a Way
6. 'til the End
7. Hand It Over
8. Jacquiline
9. Class Act
10. Ain't Going Nowhere
11. Believe Me Baby
12. Strange But True
| Details | | Distributor: | Universal Distribution | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
Personnel: James Hunter (vocals, guitar); Damian Hand (tenor saxophone); Lee Badau (baritone saxophone).
Though British soul/blues man James Hunter has been kicking around since the 1980s, his career didn't take off until his 2006 album, PEOPLE GONNA TALK. Playing for bigger stakes, he nevertheless brings exactly the same approach to the follow-up, THE HARD WAY. Blending Sam Cooke-like smooth soul-pop, hard-grooving Lee Dorsey-esque R&B, and a terse and visceral blues guitar style, Hunter creates a musical universe in which nothing happened before 1960 or after 1965, but somehow makes it all sound timely (timeless?), vital, and relevant, crooning sweet ballads one moment and leaping into furiously syncopated stompers the next.
Industry Reviews
4 stars out of 5 -- [W]ith songs that recall the likes of The Drifters, Robert Parker and even early James Brown. A sweetly soulful singer and spiky guitarist too...
4 stars out of 5 -- The singer/guitarist once more melds the gospel tones of Sam Cooke with the R&B flamboyance of the Five Royales and T-Bone Walker.
[T]his follow-up to PEOPLE GONNA TALK re-renders the art of musical seduction even more convincingly than Hunter's mentor Van Morrison.
Ranked #46 in Mojo's The 50 Best Albums Of 2008 -- [T]here's still something thrillingly original here.
3.5 stars out of 5 -- Hunter's lyrics, as always, revel in the quiet wonder of romance, their imagery and wordplay pretty much timeless.
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