LEE FIELDS: Sentimental Fool (Daptone) 28/10/2022

La discográfica independiente más importante del Soul moderno, Daptone Records, lanza a finales de octubre (28/10/2022) del nuevo álbum del cantante Lee Fields. El disco se titula «Sentimental Fool» y estará disponible en todos los formatos y en todas las plataformas. Con la (triste) desaparición de sus colegas y amigos Sharon Jones y Charles Bradley, también estrellas de la escudería Daptone, Lee Fields se queda como el abanderado principal del Soul más clásico en el sello de Nueva York, compartiendo compañía con otros artistas de otras generaciones y variados estilos.

Lee Fields es posiblemente el más grande cantante de Soul vivo. En una época en la que la vida útil de un artista depende en gran medida del postureo, el marketing, y las modas, Lee ha demostrado ser una imbatible fuerza de la naturaleza. Su prolífica carrera continúa reinando en la escena del Soul moderno. Además de veinte álbumes y más de cuarenta sencillos, Lee Fields ha subido al escenario en casi todos los festivales importantes y salas relevantes del planeta, incluidos Coachella, Bonnaroo, Newport Folk, Roskilde, Outside Lands, Rock en Seine, Carnegie Hall, Olympia en París y el Paradiso de Ámsterdam. Su obra continúa atrayendo la atención de artistas pop y productores a través de samples de pesos pesados ​​del hip hop como J. Cole, Travis Scott, Rick Ross, o A$ap Rocky. El 28 de octubre de 2022 Lee Fields lanza a la calle su vigésimoprimer larga duración, Sentimental Fool, un regreso lleno de Soul y Blues a sus raíces de Rhythm&Blues.

Lee se une a Gabriel Roth (también conocido como Bosco Mann), productor y co-propietario de Daptone Records, para grabar Sentimental Fool, cuando se cumplen 25 años de su primer encuentro. El resultado es un álbum profundo y teñido de blues concebido como un disco completo de Soul. “Quería grabar un tipo de disco diferente y realmente darle espacio a Lee para cantar”, explica Mann. “Nos tomamos nuestro tiempo y profundizamos casi dolorosamente en cada una sus canciones, reduciéndolas a puro sentimiento, sin escatimar esfuerzos, sin dejar gestos vacíos. Lee puede ser, en mi opinión, el mejor cantante vivo, y no creo que haya cantado mejor que lo que lo ha hecho en estas sesiones”. Desde su primer verso hasta su lastimera frase final, la belleza, el poder y la humanidad cruda de la voz de Lee se muestran aquí; la culminación de una carrera asombrosa que parecía desafiar la gravedad, elevándose todavía a alturas cada vez mayores.

“Con los esfuerzos de Gabe, siento que este álbum me representa como el personaje completo que soy. Soy todo emociones. Este álbum me ha permitido mostrar lo que soy capaz de hacer. No quiero decir que mi habilidad vocal vaya más allá de los demás, sino que puedo encontrar la fórmula para obtener ese sentimiento que estás buscando. No estoy tratando de superar a ningún cantante, pero puedo interpretar con sentimiento. Puedo hacer llorar a alguien si quiero. Siempre es el desafío de tratar de hacer algo más y más profundo. En este disco llego más profundo de lo que nunca he llegado”. – Lee Fields

No te pierdas esta versión en directo y en formato mínimo del mismo tema «Forever», en la que Lee Fields es magníficamente acompañado por la segunda voz de Josh Lane de Thee Sacred Souls y la guitarra de Thomas Brenneck (Menahan Street Band, Charles Bradley), en un video dirigido y editado por Bryan Ponce.

Lee Fields – Sentimental Fool. Notas del disco, por Bosco Mann (Gabriel Roth)

Conocí a Lee Fields en una sesión del primer single que hice en un estudio de grabación en Deer Park, Long Island, en 1996. Tenía veintiún años y, como devoto empedernido del rhythm and blues, ya estaba asombrado por aquel hombre parado en el micrófono al otro lado del cristal. Conocía todos sus discos, pero el que realmente me atrapó fue «Let’s Talk it Over» con «She’s a Lovemaker», que sigue siendo una de las baladas de soul más profundas que he escuchado, con una verdadera obra maestra del funk en la cara B. Si todo lo que hubiera grabado fueran esas dos canciones, todavía lo consideraría uno de los grandes cantantes de todos los tiempos. Phillip Lehman, mi socio en Desco Records, había obtenido el número de teléfono de Lee de BMI, lo llamó sin pensarlo a su casa en Plainfield, Nueva Jersey, y ahora aquí estaba frente a nosotros, leyendo mis letras mediocres y moviéndose con las bases rítmicas que habíamos improvisado para él. Hasta ese momento, la música era un pasatiempo para mí, solo algo a lo que jugar hasta que tuviese que conseguir un trabajo de verdad. Pero en el momento en que Lee abrió la boca y cantó, todo mi mundo cambió.

     Una canción es una cosa extraña. Puedo sentarme aquí y escribir todo el día sobre lo que siento por dentro: dolor, soledad, arrepentimiento, alegría, amor. Puede que lo entiendas e incluso sientas empatía en un cierto nivel intelectual, pero en realidad no sentirás lo que estoy sintiendo. No en tus entrañas. Cada uno de nosotros pasamos la vida atrapados en nuestra propia cabeza, nuestra propia piel, nuestro propio corazón. Sin embargo, una canción, la canción adecuada, cantada por el cantante adecuado, puede conectarnos a través del tiempo y el espacio. “¡Sí!”, decimos, “¡Yo también lo siento!”, e independientemente de si es un sentimiento bueno o muy doloroso, lo sentimos juntos y, por lo tanto, nos levantamos momentáneamente de la soledad de la existencia. Esta es la magia trascendente de la música, y cuando se trata de un verdadero dominio de este oficio, no hay nadie vivo que pueda tocar a Lee Fields.

Con los discos que ha hecho, es fácil ver a Lee simplemente como uno de los grandes músicos de blues de todos los tiempos. Sin embargo, cualquiera que haya tenido alguna vez una conversación con el hombre puede dar fe de que está operando en otro nivel. Es un ávido estudiante de ciencias, particularmente de física, y tiene una mente curiosa y perspicaz que está constantemente sondeando el universo en busca de un significado más profundo, conectando las cosas de una manera que pocas personas lo harían. En el estudio, su método es diferente a cualquier artista con el que haya trabajado. A menudo se transformará entre su ego, superego e id, invocando el estado que le resulte más útil. Lo hace con gran intención, refiriéndose a cada reino de su psique por su término freudiano. Primero se acerca a una canción con su yo más empírico, analizándola durante horas o incluso días, considerando exactamente de qué trata la canción, de dónde viene el cantante, qué podría estar sintiendo y qué o a quién anhela. Experimenta metódicamente con palabras o inflexiones particulares, postulando qué respuesta podrían provocar en un oyente si se pronuncian de formas ligeramente diferentes.

     Solo después de agotar todas las posibilidades, se disculpará, solo por un sorbo o dos de Jack Daniells, o tal vez por toda la noche para estudiar el trabajo en cuestión. A veces incluso se disculpa por adelantado por el hombre indómito que puede estar por aparecer. Y cuando regresa, ciertamente está en un estado alterado. Ya no es el hombre profundamente analítico, sino ahora un ser de puro instinto y sentimiento, el tonto sentimental (sentimental fool) ajeno a todos los límites y consecuencias, cazando el micrófono y vistiendose con la canción como una piel nueva. Es en estos momentos fugaces de puro abandono que ofrece las interpretaciones que me han dejado asombrado.

Ha pasado mucho tiempo desde aquella primera sesión en Long Island. Lee, que ya estaba llenando salas en el circuito de blues sureño, pasó a dominar la escena del soul moderno durante décadas, primero con los Soul Providers y Sugarman 3, y luego asociándose con el incomparable Leon Michels y sus Expressions para grabar media docena de brillantes álbumes entre innumerables giras alrededor del mundo. Yo mismo, terminé conociendo a una joven Sharon Jones que vino a cantar coros para Lee en esa misma sesión y procedió a mantenerme ocupado durante muchos y emocionantes años. A lo largo de todo ese tiempo, mi admiración por Lee no ha hecho más que crecer mientras miraba desde los bastidores. Siempre quise volver a grabar con él, y ahora que he tenido la oportunidad he puesto todo mi corazón y alma en ello, tratando de igualar su gran talento con puro esfuerzo. Trabajar en este disco con él realmente ha sido una de las experiencias más exigentes y gratificantes de mi vida, y le estaré eternamente agradecido por darme la oportunidad de hacerlo.

     Lee a menudo habla de que la estructura del universo está llena de electrones que viajan en círculos interminables: átomos, galaxias e incluso discoss, todos girando juntos en un mar de vibraciones que conectan todo. Él cree que si puede crear las formas de onda correctas con su voz, puede llegar a los corazones de las personas para siempre a través de los surcos de este disco y guiarlos hacia el amor, la compasión y la humanidad. Esto puede parecer una empresa ambiciosa, pero escucha este disco y dime si no se siente cada gota de sentimiento que él derramó en él. Cuando escucho a Lee cantar estas canciones algo se levanta dentro de mí y me siento inspirado para hacerlo mejor, tal como lo sentí el día que lo conocí hace tantos años.

– Bosco Mann (Gabe Roth)

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Sentimental Fool (en inglés)

Lee Fields is arguably the greatest soul singer alive today. In an age when the shelf life of an artist largely depends on posturing and trends, he has proven to be an unassailable force of nature. His prolific, decade-spanning career continues to reign supreme on the modern soul scene. In addition to twenty albums and over forty singles, he has taken the stage at almost every major festival and relevant venue on the planet, including Coachella, Bonnaroo, Newport Folk, Roskilde, Outside Lands, Rock en Seine, Carnegie Hall, the Olympia in Paris, and the Paradiso in Amsterdam. His body of work continues to garner the attention of pop artists and producers via samples by hip hop heavyweights: J. Cole, Travis Scott, Rick Ross, A$ap Rocky. This October, Lee releases his 21st full-length, Sentimental Fool – a soulful, bluesy return to his rhythm & blues roots. 

In 2022, Lee reunited with Daptone Records and producer Gabriel Roth (AKA Bosco Mann) on the 25^th anniversary of their first meeting to record Sentimental Fool, a deep, blues-tinged, wholly-conceived soul album. “I wanted to cut a different kind of record and really give Lee room to sing,” explains Mann. “We took our time and got painfully deep into every one of these tunes, stripping them down to pure feeling – no effort spared, no empty gestures remaining. Lee might be the greatest singer alive and I don’t think he’s ever sung better than on these sessions.” From his first line to his final plaintive lyric, the beauty, power, and raw humanity of Lee’s voice is on full display here; the culmination of an astounding career that has seemed to defy gravity, rising to only greater and greater heights.“With Gabe’s efforts I feel like this album depicts me as the full character that I am. I’m all about emotions. This album allowed me to show what I’m capable of doing. Not to say that my vocal ability goes beyond others, but I’m able to figure out the math to get the feeling you’re looking for. I’m not trying to outdo any singer, but I can interpret the feeling. I can make someone cry if I want to.  It’s always the challenge of trying to make something deeper. On this record I go deeper than I’ve ever gone.” – Lee Fields

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From the very first time he saw James Brown perform, on the T.A.M.I. Show in 1964, Lee Fields knew he was going to be a singer. Born Elmer Lee Fields to Emma Jean Fields and John Fields in Wilson, North Carolina in 1950, he was still a teenager in the Summer of 1967 when his mother reluctantly gave him her last twenty dollars to hop a bus north to follow his dreams. He turned up unannounced at the Brooklyn apartment of his friend Fred Williams who had told him to “come up and stay anytime.” Williams happened to be getting married the very next day and was in the process of moving out. At the wedding, Lee met Lonnie Smith who took him around to some clubs later that night. When he stepped up to sing a James Brown tune with Little Love and the Lovelights at the 521 Club on Nostrand Ave. and Fulton St., people started throwing money. It was enough for him to buy a nice dinner and cover the first three weeks rent at the apartment that used to be Williams’s. Lee was on his way.

He started performing Brown’s tunes at clubs all around the city with different bands, including regular weekends with Sammy Gordon and the Hip Huggers (who would later back him in the studio) at the Boston Road Ballroom in the Bronx. In a short time, he was getting hired as a featured singer for parties, dances, and club dates. He was soon dubbed “Little JB” by fans who were blown away by his uncanny ability to cop Brown’s voice, moves, and look.

In 1968, he met Ray Patterson who had made a chunk of money running a gypsy cab company on Bedford Ave. and wanted to put some of it behind Lee. He drove Lee down to Charlotte to record at Arthur Smith Studios, which was already famous for cutting Brown’s hit, “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” a few years earlier. Lee was matched with producer Kip Anderson – who had enjoyed moderate success in the sixties as a blues and R&B singer and songwriter with records like “A Knife and a Fork” – to record what would be his first record, “Bewildered,” a song made famous by Brown. Unfortunately for Lee, shortly after the release of the record in 1969, the IRS caught up with Patterson, dashing his music industry ambitions after Bedford Records’ first and only release.

Around this time, Lee caught the ear of music industry heavies Teddy Powell and Gene Redd Jr. who were keen on cutting a record with him. Powell, the owner of TP Productions and the most prominent black promoter in New York at that time, began featuring Lee on some of his big rhythm and blues revues. Redd for his part, connected Lee with a young band called Kool & the Gang, who he managed and produced. The band had already dropped their first eponymous single, but had yet to taste the success that would lie ahead. Lee joined the act and did about fifteen shows with them as a featured singer. (Incidentally, Lee cites Redd as the inspiration for the impeccably dapper wardrobe he dons to this day.)

It was this same year that Lee would meet the love of his life, Christine. They married and in 1969 moved to Plainfield, New Jersey, where they still reside today. Sadly, Redd had been battling illness and passed away later that same year. In December,. Kool and the Gang released their debut LP, and in 1970 dropped the hit single “Let the Music Take Your Mind,” which would launch their inevitable ascent to stardom with Lee watching from the wings.

Despite these setbacks, Lee would go on to perform and record at a high level throughout the seventies. As soul and funk reached its peak in popularity, he released a string of self-penned singles on Sound Plus, Norfolk Sound (with his then manager Maurice Ward), and eventually his own Angle 3 Records (“The Sound of Plainfield.”) In 1973, Lee went to A-1 Sound Studios in Manhattan with Sammy Gordon and the Hip Huggers as his band to record what would be two of his most iconic sides, “Let’s Talk it Over” and “She’s a Lovemaker.” The studio owner and engineer on the session was Herb Abramson, who was taken by Lee’s talent and offered to sign him to a record deal. As Abramson sat smoking a joint and rambling off his long list of credentials – that he’d produced the Coasters, The Ravens, Don Covay, Clyde McPhatter, Ruby and the Romantics, Billy Eckstine, Big Joe Turner; that he had been founder and co-owner of not just Jubilee, but ATCO and Atlantic Records itself – Lee assumed he was bullshitting, and politely passed on the offer. It was only years later that he realized he had missed an opportunity to sign on with a legend. Regardless, with Abramson behind the board the single was dynamite, and, along with “Gonna Make Love” (b/w “Call Her Sugar,”) was picked up by London Records for international distribution. Though none of them ever cracked into the Billboard charts, Lee’s singles from this period are all red-hot and have become highly sought-after by today’s record lovers. He capped off the decade with the 1979 release of his first full-length album, Let’s Talk it Over.

Although Lee had really hit his stride on the stage and in the studio, mainstream success had been elusive in the seventies, and by 1980, disco had all but taken over. The raw, bluesy, side of soul music that was Lee’s bread and butter had fallen out of popularity. He recorded a handful of singles that he released on his own BDA Records (a prescient acronym for “Better Days Ahead”) including his disco twelve-inch “Stop Watch,” which charted but didn’t make any money. 

The eighties proved to be a tough decade for Lee. He felt lost and disheartened, and for the first time began looking at a future that might not be in music. Seeking direction, he began to spend a lot of his time reading. By the end of the decade, he’d begun to dabble in real estate and thought he had finally started to find his bearings. He had designs on opening a fish sandwich eatery and even had his eye on a storefront in which to put it. If not for the sage advice of his ever-grounded wife Christine, that might have been the end of his music career. “What do you know about fish?” she prodded. “Stick with what you know.”

Fortunately, the next decade would be kinder to Lee. He took Christine’s advice and put his savings into music equipment instead of fish. He bought a mic, speakers, and a small mixing board and in 1991, recorded and produced “Meet Me Tonight” in his home studio. The tune quickly became a hit with the southern blues crowd, a flourishing scene which had evolved out of the Chitlin Circuit. Lee soon found himself crooning “back door” blueses nightly to huge (and mostly female) audiences across the South who’d never lost their love for soul, selling CD’s and tapes as fast as he could duplicate them in his garage. In 1992, he signed a five-year contract with Johnny Vincent who had re-activated his legendary Ace Records the decade before, and in 1993 released the LP Enough is Enough. Lee would continue to enjoy success on the southern blues circuit for many years, releasing another three albums with Ace and its Avanti subsidiary.

In 1996, Lee got a call for a session at Desco Records, a New York-based independent label run by two ardent fans of his records, Phillip Lehman and Gabriel Roth. He showed up at Dare Studios in Deer Park, Long Island, and cut “Let a Man Do What He Wana Do”[sic] (b/w “Steam Train”) which would be Desco’s first forty-five as well as Lee’s explosive arrival onto a whole new scene. (Incidentally, it was also a debut for Sharon Jones, who was called in to sing background vocals on the session.) Against the backdrop of the slickly produced acid jazz of the early nineties, an underground movement was taking hold, spurred on by local DJ nights like Keb Darge’s Deep Funk in London, as a new young crowd began rediscovering and falling in love with the tougher sounds of the late sixties and early seventies funk forty-fives.

While still riding high on the southern blues circuit, producing and releasing several of his records on his own BDA label, the late nineties found Lee working more and more on this new scene, often headlining the Desco Super Soul Revue, which featured labelmates Sharon Jones, Joseph Henry, Naomi (Davis) Shelton, The Sugarman 3, The Mighty Imperials, and The Soul Providers. (The latter two groups featured a sixteen year old Leon Michels on organ and saxophone respectively.) Desco released the full-length Let’s Get a Groove On in 1998, cementing Lee as not just an OG legend, but a torchbearer of the new funk revival. Backed first by Desco house band, The Soul Providers, and later by the Sugarman 3, Lee was now on the road in front of a whole new generation of fans, not just in the states, but in Canada, the UK and Europe as well. Over the next two decades, the Desco roster of musicians would grow to a larger family that would become the backbone of not just Lee’s music, but an entire Brooklyn soul renaissance.

In 2000, Lehman and Roth parted ways, shutting Desco’s doors and each forming new labels – Soul Fire and Daptone, respectively. Lee recorded for both in the early aughts, releasing the Problems LP on Soul Fire, and a handful of singles on Daptone including his ballad “Could Have Been.”  

In 2005, Lee’s career took an interesting detour after being called by Martin Solveig to sing on a club track. “Jealousy” became an international hit on the dance scene and for a few strange years he found himself in first class, jetting all over the planet to make appearances as the featured vocalist at bizarre palatial DJ parties from Ibiza to Monaco.

In 2003 Lehman departed Soul Fire and the label was taken over by owner/producer Leon Michels and rebranded first as Truth and Soul and later as Big Crown Records. As the modern soul scene continued to grow and transform over the next two decades, Lee kept his place firmly on top, recording half a dozen albums with Michels as producer – including 2009’s My World, which contained both “Ladies” and “Honey Dove” –  and criss-crossing the globe relentlessly with The Expressions as his band.

In 2022, Lee reunited with Daptone Records and producer Gabriel Roth (AKA Bosco Mann) on the 25^th anniversary of their first meeting to record Sentimental Fool, a deep, blues-tinged, wholly-conceived soul album. “I wanted to cut a different kind of record and really give Lee room to sing,” explains Mann. “We took our time and got painfully deep into every one of these tunes, stripping them down to pure feeling – no effort spared, no empty gestures remaining. Lee might be the greatest singer alive and I don’t think he’s ever sung better than on these sessions.” From his first line to his final plaintive lyric, the beauty, power, and raw humanity of Lee’s voice is on full display here; the culmination of an astounding career that has seemed to defy gravity, rising to only greater and greater heights.

“With Gabe’s efforts I feel like this album depicts me as the full character that I am. I’m all about emotions. This album allowed me to show what I’m capable of doing. Not to say that my vocal ability goes beyond others, but I’m able to figure out the math to get the feeling you’re looking for. I’m not trying to outdo any singer, but I can interpret the feeling. I can make someone cry if I want to.  It’s always the challenge of trying to make something deeper. On this record I go deeper than I’ve ever gone.” – Lee Fields

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