EMORY JOSEPH
LABOR & SPIRITS
By Tony Peyser
Santa Monica Mirror

I don’t know what’s more amazing: how good Emory Joseph’s Labor & Spirits is or the fact that it’s his debut. Its multi-genre sounds reminded me of early Little Feat jamming in New Orleans with NRBQ. Joseph is in his thirties and his songs are possessed with a worldly wisdom as opposed to a world-weariness.

The choogling “Carolina Princess” is about a guy on a Tennessee-bound train. But Joseph from the get-go sounds like someone who’s laying down his own tracks, not just traveling on ones already in place. I love the way he refers to himself as “a long gone boy.” His vivid descriptions of people on the train include these lines about a conductor: “He’ll lose that tip money at the crap game in the baggage car at ten/And on tomorrow’s run he’ll try to win it back again.” In those pair of lines, you get a whole life of three steps forward, two steps back: Sisyphus on his way to Memphis.

With its boogie piano and bouncy spirit, “Rhum and Coffee” is something Fats Waller could have performed or written. You’ve got to love a guy who doesn’t drink martinis because he doesn’t like the glass. To describe “Trinkets,” Joseph used these four words: silly, greasy, funky, spacey. It’s also comic and cosmic, a joyful, about-to-burst song that pulls together previously disparate elements that include Vincent Van Gogh, Louis Armstrong and dachshunds. “Work To Do” shows a whole other side with a rousing gospel rave-up. Even though he writes and sings, Joseph is more like a guy with a band than a singer-songwriter. The tenth track is “Family Dog,” an unabashed romp that proves Joseph’s got the sly wit and shuffling charm to run with the big dogs.