Rootshighway.it Review
Emory Joseph "Labor & Spirits"
Carlo Lancini

“Thirtish native of St. Louis; raised near a family farm - near mules and guns, enlightened by rock’n’roll, blues and jazz, folk and bluegrass, clever and intuitive glances in a simple and affable style.

This is Emory Joseph. Labor & Spirits is his debut album.

A past spent listening to records in the shadows of the music business, waiting to achieve a dream. Today: an indie label, a self-produced work and such a star parade that every major should set its aerials in tune with it. But there’s no need for that: Emory Joseph walks with his own legs and makes a present for an ageless music, traditional and modern, country, R&B and soul. Authentic music from with roots, “roots music” painted into an unconditional frame, light years far from marketing and false glitters. With the help of musicians like Kenny Aronoff, Soozie Tyrell, Levon Helm, “T-Bone” Wolk and Jon Carroll, this singer-songwriter bears high-level comparisons and records an absolutely interesting album.

Labor & Spirits is a container, a lunch box filled with sounds that cross America, from the Memphis brass of Carolina Princess to the lively Louisiana of Be Home Baby, from the Oklahoma in Work To Do (old school, electric rhythm guitar, choirs and an ending somewhere between blues and gospel) to Sweet William, a ballad; little and provincial, but ploughed by fiddle and Hammond. The playful acoustic piano swing of Rhum and Coffee (dedicated to Guy Clark) blends with the romantic and honeyed The Same that follows. Early In The Morning is a soft and sugary ballad, though a dark reflection of an ended love that is pathetic in the things that all of us had to face at least once in our life.

It’s his first album, and his maturity allows him to place, with non-chalance and in-between sorrowful lines like “Last night you said it's over" and "I know you don't love me, but what can I do?", a slice of daily life like "Right now the dog wants out, and the cat wants back in": sensational.

Ten whispered, shouted and spoken pieces, ten genuine pieces and a funky-ish “hidden” track, recorded between New York and Los Angeles that give a full hug to a music fertile land too many times forgotten by the new generations. We’re lucky there’s Emory Joseph.”