plorentz's Full Review: Live at Sob's New York City by John Stephens (R&B)
I was in a play a while back called “The Last Night of Ballyhoo”, which centered on a Jewish family living in Atlanta during Hitler’s rise to power in Europe; and in an act of poetic injustice, playwright Alfred Uhry had given the family’s thoughtful patriarch the name Adolph.
Hold that thought.
As if we needed it, we music lovers got another “smoking gun” in our ongoing crusade against Music of Mass Production, when youngster and fake pop star Ashlee Simpson’s fakeness was humiliatingly exposed on live television. Simpson, having nothing much in her live performance arsenal, resorted to a few formless coos into the microphone, a look of confused resignation, a strange, almost ritualistic Riverdance jig (which, God bless her, she used to get herself off stage), and a tasteless accusation of her band. But don’t let’s fret over Ashlee. This’ll roll off of her, I’m sure. As Americans, we’ve learned to be extremely tolerant and even accommodating of fakeness.
As I’ve heard from artists like Anita Baker and Prince in concert this year, live performance, especially in pop and R&B music, is in a state of crisis. We live with the imminent and growing threat of lip-syncing all around us, and our airwaves have been dominated by musical “fakists” for years.
Blame American Bandstand.
Blame American Idol too. A virtual, international, televised pop madrassa churning out a new generation of fakists each Spring, elevating a new crop of questionably talented youngsters to a level of fame and notoriety many far-more-deserving real performers never reach, even after years of solid dues-paying.
Now, imagine yourself an up-and-coming soul singer from Ohio. You’ve been playing the piano for years. You have a natural charisma in front of an audience. You’re good-looking and confident, and damn, boy, you can sang too. You’ve had a few breaks, played on a few hip-hop records. You’ve got a dedicated following for the shows you play. You’re starting to meet people – important people who can take you to the “next level”. You’re recording tapes, and sending them out. You’re starting to get a name… Oh yeah. You’re John Stephens.
That’s not to be confused with a certain washed-out redhead from New York state, who “sings” anemic versions of songs from his grandma and grandpa’s hit parade; whose nauseating lack of talent is as huge and unmistakable as, say, a major RDX/HDX weapons stockpile. But nevertheless, week after excruciating week, the American public (the same folks who brought you “Dubya II: The Empire Strikes Back”) kept voting this pale pathetique (d'oh - there I go with my French again!) - named John Stevens - back onto the stage.
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Now Kanye West might have us all believe that the newly christened John “Legend” Stephens earned his new moniker with his razzle-dazzling live performances, but given the timing of it all, I’m much more inclined to think that John Stephens’ sudden transformation into John Legend has more to do with – say - a Jew named Adolph at the height of World War II.
Whether Stephens – I mean, Legend – can live up to such hyperbolic appellation remains to be seen. After all, the dude hasn’t even released his first studio album yet (that’s coming in Decem- err January... it keeps getting pushed out), but as evidenced by a couple of independently recorded and released live albums currently available on his website (www.johnlegend.net), Legend is no faker.
Recorded at a single show in New York in December of 2002, Live at SOB’s was the last CD John Stephens released under that oh-so-unfortunate name, and unlike his more recent Solo Sessions Vol. 1 – Live at the Knitting Factory, this CD features the singer fronting a full-size band, with a turntablist (Young Devo) and back-up girls and everything. But like the Knitting Factory CD, Live at SOB’s should go a long way towards quelling Anita Baker’s fears that live performers are going the way of the Democratic Party.
Plowing through an often electrifying set of mostly self-written (with Dave Tozer and/or Kanye West) originals, Stephens is an assured performer, confident and sleak, stylish and sexy. He arrives with a righteous mandate and a fierce determination to blow the audience’s mind on the opening number “Set It Off” (laced with a “wanna battle?” sample), the Stax soul revival of “Hurts So Bad” (I so want to hear the Staples Singers doing that one) and the snaky funk of “Alright”, which features some wonderful guitar work by Tozer. The young band has all the tightness and exactitude and spontaneity of more seasoned performers, and their live energy projects from the speakers with vivid color and infectious attitude.
Not everything they do works all that well. “Soul Joint” is a silly retro-trifle more befitting a commercial for Big Red chewing gum or Sprite Remix than a real soul show; and a squeaky-clean borrowing of the Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House”, feels stiff and falls a little flat. His triumphalist lyrical modifications of the song rob it of its paranoiac mystique; and it comes off less the funky work-out it should have been and more like a victory speech.
But those are really the only sore spots on the disc, and Stephens delivers electro-charged performances of audience favorites like “Lifted”, “Motherless Chile”, and the magnificent revival-tent-shakin’ “Sun Comes Up” – giving us fully arranged, and equally satisfying alternatives to the gorgeous, jazzy piano-and-voice performances that appear on the Knitting Factory disc.
This CD also comes with a studio-cut bonus track called “Without You”, which feels disappointingly standard, and reinforces my expectation that, though I will probably like Legend’s studio debut, I probably won’t love it the way I do this CD, and especially the Knitting Factory disc. Go get it!
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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
“Live at SOB’s, New York City” by John Stephens
DCN / www.JohnLegend.net
Released 2003
Produced by Dave Tozer
44 min.
SONGS: Set It Off – Alright – Lifted – Soul Joint – Hurts So Bad – Sun Comes Up – The Wrong Way – Motherless Chile – Burning Down the House – Without You
Unlike the Knitting Factory disc, this CD comes in a standard “shelf-ready” jewel case, though the insert is only a single front-and-back-printed page. The CD (ten dollars plus shipping) arrived in pristine condition a mere three days after I placed the order on the website.
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