Mayer Hawthorne needs some Chicago soul

One day, California singer Mayer Hawthorne was listening to a bunch of beats sent to him by hip-hop producer Nottz. One particular beat stood out, he tells the Stones Throw website. “It had the same chord progression as [Otis Leavill's "I Need You"], so I just went with it.”

Indeed he did, rescuing a 41-year-old ballad from obscurity. Mayer Hawthorne’s cover version of “I Need You” is #nowplaying at 22tracks’ soul playlist.

It’s pretty stunning that hip-hop produce Nottz did not create the track with “I Need You” in mind, because the song fits perfectly. Here is the original, produced by Willie Henderson, a protégé of the great Chicago record man Carl Davis.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v1o_gLZeGY

“I Need You” was the B-side of “I Love You“, an R&B Top Ten hit in 1969 for Carl Davis’s assistant, Otis Leavill Cobb. He never released an album, but he certainly had good ears because according to Allmusic, Leavill discovered The Chi-Lites, Bohannon and also a group called Manchild, that included a teenage Babyface! (Apparently, he also passed on Chaka Khan, but I guess you can’t be right all the time.)

Otis Leavill died of a heart attack in 2002. Both “I Love You” and “I Need You” were reissued on CD in 1999, on the compilation The Class of Mayfield High, and unless Mayer Hawthorne is something of 45 collector, I guess that’s how “I Need You” wound up on his DJ mix album Soul With a Hole Vol. 1. (It’s funny how Otis Leavill’s name is spelled incorrectly, in two different ways even, on both the mix CD and the Stones Throw site.)

Dominick Lamb AKA Virginia producer Nottz is best known for his work with luminaries such as Busta Rhymes, Xzibit, Ghostface Killah, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West and The Game. Most of it is on album tracks rather than hit singles, though I guess this Nottz production did pretty well:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2q6yxYmUt4

If that video gets you in the mood for scantily clad ladies, Mayer Hawthorne has a new video out for one of his own compostitions, “Your Easy Lovin’ Ain’t Pleasin’ Nothin’”:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAxBdYM8opg

My two cents for Aloe Blacc

When Cali soul artist Aloe Blacc came out with his debut solo album four years ago, it wasn’t so much that I was convinced he was going to be next big thing. The next big could-be, though? Most definitely. Shine Through was a marvel of an album, an unpolished diamond. He underlined his potential with a hugely enjoyable performance upstairs at the Paradiso, probably my favourite venue in Amsterdam.

But that was 2007 and I’d almost forgotten all about Aloe Blacc (sorry!) until he showed up a short while ago singing the theme tune to HBO’s new dramedy series How to Make it in America. Currently not showing outside of America, I believe, unless you know your way around the inpenetrable world of torrent files. According to Aloe’s record label Stones Throw, “I Need a Dollar” is the first single from his forthcoming album Good Things. I like the sound of that. The song is #nowplaying on 22tracks’ funk/jazz playlist.

The band playing on “I Need a Dollar” is New York’s El Michels Affair, best known for an album of re-enacted Wu-Tang instrumentals called Enter the 37th Chamber, released one year ago. Cash rules everything around them, you see. You may also know El Michels Affair, named after guitarist and (presumably) band leader Leon Michels, as The Expressions. That’s their name when they’re backing soul singer Lee Fields.

Like the band, Aloe Blacc, who used to be a rapper when he was in the group Emanon, bears both hip-hop and soul in him. “I Need a Dollar” is a throwback record for sure, but there’s no telling what he will come up with next. After all, Shining Through even included some samba and salsa music. The latin playlist could be next for him.

Here’s Aloe Blacc’s should-be classic “I’m Beautiful”, from back in the day:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hAyrssxG1s