Lee Fields is also Little JB and we were lucky enough to catch that deep Soul heat last night, with his superlative Revue band.
JB stands for James Brown of course, of which Fields is a worthy disciple. Along with many others, the most famous one being Michael Jackson.
They may have both caught the legendary T.A.M.I. show, broadcast on American TV in 1964. Jackson the artist was born on that day. The audition of the Jackson Five for Motown Records in 1968 included Michael singing and dancing to I Feel Good.
Elmer Lee Fields was born in North Carolina in 1951. He had dreams of pursuing a musical path, and with sterling perseverance he now does carry the cape for the departed Godfather of Soul.
He did head to New York in 1967 to chase the dream on the back of that 1964 show. Legend has it his mother begged him not to go, but still gave him her last twenty dollars.
He recorded a first single in 1969. Has collaborated and worked with everyone. The likes of Kool and the Gang, Dr John, Bobby Bland, Little Milton, Bobby Womack, and that is but a small sample. There are twenty albums and forty singles at least.
His songs have graced movies like Soul Men. A hit called Honey Love appeared on American Dad. Provided some additional vocal for the movie of James Brown’s life Get on Up.
His band warms the crowd first with an instrumental version of Don’t Ever Leave Me.
A horn section of trumpet and saxophone is pure-toned and wonderful. Drums, bass guitar, lead guitar and keyboards are locked in from the start and are seamless.
No fines will be imposed tonight!
Fields arrives on stage with the sax player introducing him as the hardest working man in show business. He is a compact package and looks extraordinarily like James Brown’s double.
You Can Count on Me and I Still Got It. Fields has a distinctive piercing tenor, but it does take a few songs to warm that up to full Soul testifying pitch.
Standing by Your Side and the voice elevates to high dramatic accents whilst the band deliver a rhythmic attack. I notice the drummer who maintains the human metronome style of JB stalwarts like John Jabo Starks.
Got to Get Through and the classic Sixties Deep Soul sound of an O.V. Wright is nailed. Fields has also worked with him.
What Did I Do he introduces as a Blues, the real stuff. It is magnificent, as is the rest of his set from here. Blues as defined by Bobby Blue Bland and his gold standard album Two Steps from the Blues.
Which means it sounds like the definition of Soul, if not the dictionary. Otis claimed that one.
The band step back a little. Less volume and a spare sound. There are teardrop guitar tones, and bass gets to walk a little. High Gospel screams nail it.
You can trace this Soul Blues from Robert Johnson directly, if you listen to Crossroad Blues, Terraplane Blues and especially If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day.
Two Jobs is given an extended treatment and slays the audience. A song of social situation and this style of American music, Black or White, is about transcending and elevation. It is wrong to regard it as wallowing in self pity and hanging on to misery.
Fields keep the emotional delivery coming and works it into joy like a great showman that he is. There is some JB shuffle dancing. Baby you need love! That’s Willie Dixon, Mississippi Muddy Waters and Led Zeppelin.
Forever and he comes back with the dictionary. Classic Sixties Soul passion and the tones of Joe Tex and Sam and Dave.
Those last three songs are off his last album, Sentimental Fool. Fields describes it as a culmination of a long career for him. Worth your while to check it out.
Romi Wrights opens the show tonight, with an impromptu Jazz band assembled especially for this show.
I know little about her except she is Lisa Romi Wright, and she comes from Tokelau. That immediately makes her a little special.
I visited there once, in another time and life as a junior doctor. Tiny islands on a coral reef, and it took almost three days to get there by boat from Samoa. More Tokelauans live in New Zealand than there, and that was close to forty years ago.
She currently resides in Wellington.
Opening song Without You and she has a fine classic Soul voice pitched around the style of the mid-Sixties onward. She shares that with the headline act.
This is her debut single, on Spotify at least, and the flip side is Bring it Back.
There is a sterling band behind her, and they can really cook. Jazz musicians, as many were who backed Soul singers in the past.
Matt Hunter guitar and collaborator. Navakatoa Tekela-Pule bass, JY Lee saxophone and flute. Francesca Parussini keyboards and flute. Julian Dyne drums.
Gimme your Love is where the flute stands out. Wrights unleashes with some high vocal peaks here.
Special is a slow burner, and she phrases like Joe Cocker singing You Are So Beautiful.
Lee Fields finishes with Money Is King. You know it is, and the music is a hard rhythmic drive. Horns are miraculous. Sings about hundred dollar bills and screams like Brother Brown. It’s gets a little Funky Dollar Bill in the house.
Of course, they come back for one more blast with Faithful Man. A slow start. Since you been gone/ I’m so alone. Then dial up the heat and emotion.
Lee Fields takes the evening out, shaking it ‘til the backbone slips!
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
Lee Fields
Romi Wright
