Mighty Sam has been the blues-soul world’s most unappreciated artist for over three decades now, quietly bearing the standard for the genre with his deeply spiritual, satiny smooth, but gut-punching brand of urban R&B. Now that his “New Man In Town” is all over the air on that live-action version of “Cathy,” (which is to say, Fox’s “Ally McBeal”), Sam sounds ready to go STEPPIN’. Blues For The Soul has all the earmarks of a bid for the big time, and is all the better for it.
Let’s look at the evidence: a new label (Telarc), 12 new original songs, recorded in New York—hell, McClain even dressed up in white on the cover, like a blind date eager to make an impression on the record-buying public. Yet there’s no shame in his game, because this CD stands up next to anything Sam’s ever recorded, encompassing his unique personality and defining it perfectly for the ages.
How many artists would do a song like the new classic “Jesus Got The Blues” (“He even wrote us a love letter / And he sealed it with a kiss / And it breaks his heart every day / To hear you say he don’t exist”), and how many bluesmen would play it completely straight, making you feel like Jesus was an ex-boyfriend you’d cheated on? And how many could turn “Now I lay me down to sleep” into a moving minor-key meditation on the responsibility to bring love into the world, as Sam does on “Mighty’s Prayer”?
That dichotomy between the sacred and the profane has been a sticking point for blues and soul musicians for the past century, almost, but the Mighty One acts like blending the two is the most natural thing in the world, even as he dips into more worldly waters on the jumped-up “Can’t Stand It” and the loser’s anthem “Dark Side Of The Street.” And locals will no doubt skip straight to “Goin’ Back To New Orleans,” where the local in Sam name-checks the Nevilles, Carlo Ditta, and others over a skittish parade beat.
Mighty Sam McClain has the vision and talent to become nothing less than the new king of soul-blues music and, more importantly, to consolidate the genre into one forward-thinking whole, steeped in tradition and yet tuned in to the rhythms of life. Turn the female lawyer shows off, and get into something real.
