The period between 1969-1973 was the age of universal soul: authentic black gospel was in the Top 40, swamp-rock proved the New South had come around, and the legacy of country soul that had started with Percy Sledge and Otis finally came to fruition. It was the era of Joe Simon and Joe South, the chicken coop/scratch of Jerry Reed, the chomp of Tony Joe White, a million Junior Elvises like Ronnie Milsap, an era that stretches from “Green-Eyed Lady” and “Ride Captain Ride” to “Loves Me Like a Rock” and “Drift Away.” And this is the place where Eric Lindell makes his stand, now more than ever.
His first record for the indie-roots label Red Parlor completes the transformation this singer-songwriter began on 2011s West County Drifter, morphing from a bluesman with heavy soul overtones to a straight blue-eyed soulster with heavy roots. Anson Funderburgh’s guitar, still serving as a delicious counterpoint, is one of the only blues elements left, backed up for the first time by Luther Dickinson’s Resonator guitar, but Lindell’s commitment to that classic country-soul mélange has gotten so adept that it’s his straightest country covers which sound most like the blues: Hag’s “Here in Frisco,” George Jones’ “She Thinks I Still Care,” George Strait’s “You Look So Good in Love.”
The early ’70s are also where we find Van Morrison’s classic albums His Band and the Street Choir and Tupelo Honey, worth noting because Lindell—who started out as a more or less straight blues man with three excellent Alligator albums—has used his blue-eyed soul, like Van, to fashion his “domestic bliss” album, a place where his usual good natured warmth finally finds its home. It’s also telling that his occasional pain sounds redemptive and his joy inspiring, impulses that come from the church and not the cotton field. Even his harmonica leaves the juke joint on “Sweet Beautiful Thing” for a chromatic Stevie Wonder exercise. And the Fender Rhodes is everywhere.
Matters of the Heart is too rooted and heartfelt to be merely soul revivalism, and it’s damn sure not hipster PBR&B—who else knows enough to cover ultra-obscure Nixon-era 45s like Matilda Jones’ “Wrong Too Long” and Cold Grits’ “Bayou Country”?—but you could slap a filter on this baby, tweak the mix, and trick someone into thinking it was a resuscitated classic from that magic era of universal soul. You don’t have to be a member of the Class of ’72 to let Eric share his peace of mind with you. But it doesn’t hurt.
