Stone Rollin’ — The Sound of Summer

Sometimes you need to step back from a favorite sound or style before it can sound fresh again. It may have taken a few decades, but Motown has been given a sec­ond life.  Falling in line next to retro-artists such as Amy Winehouse and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Raphael Saadiq’s fresh spin on mid-60’s funk in his lat­est album is mak­ing a pow­er­ful first impres­sion. Despite its unde­ni­able old-school approach, Stone Rollin’ is so refresh­ing that we sim­ply can­not resist the sound.

In fact, he may be doing it bet­ter.  After win­ning a chance to appear on stage with Prince and Sheila E. just out of high school, Saadiq (then still known by his birth name, Raphael Wiggins) joined his brother Dwayne and cousin Timothy Christian and formed Tony! Toni! Tonè!  Since, he’s been a behind-the-scenes player in the indus­try. Working steadily, he hadn’t held our atten­tion until now.

“Stone Rollin’ ” is the bliss­ful result of Saadiq’s unique blend­ing of the best aspects of motown funk and early 70’s soul, but sport­ing the spirit of gospel and R&B — a very cool con­coc­tion he refers to as “gos­pedelic”. Saadiq may be a throw­back artist through and through, but accord­ing to Rolling Stone Magazine,“He doesn’t just redis­cover the past, he remakes it.”

As if writ­ing and pro­duc­ing Stone Rollin’ him­self, was not enough, Saadiq plays mul­ti­ple instru­ments on most of the tracks, includ­ing the bass, keys, gui­tar, per­cus­sion, drums and mel­lotron. It’s easy to get lost in the warm, infec­tious tones of this album, espe­cially the down­right groovy “Day Dreams” where Saadiq pays homage to the late Ray Charles. We find our­selves crav­ing the upbeat, dance­able “Radio” and the redemp­tive “Go to Hell”, but  Saadiq’s sound is so deep that most of the tracks are solid. Take our word for it, this album is what sum­mer should sound like.

“I don’t know where the title Stone Rollin’ came from,” says Saadiq. “It just came out of my mouth one day, but it just made sense with where I’m at right now. I feel like I’m a stone rollin’, like I’m ready to rock. I’m ready to go. Throw me any­where and I’ll make it hap­pen. I feel really good about this album.”

And Baby, so do we.

Sarah Pytlik. Leah Spurrier. HighStreet. Cincinnati