Barrence Whitfield: It takes a savage man to lead a savage band
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Perhaps it would be overly generous to remark that every generation has its Soul-shouting spectacle who tears up stages and reminds audiences how damn good it is to be alive, aware, and partaking of the hipness known only by the clever.
Golden eras of yore had Solomon Burke, the 'Wicked Pickett,' and Little Richard. The Hep-smart presently inhaling have Barrence.
He looms atop a recordings-stash (which dates back to 1984), and from that acme looses volleys of borderline unhingedness that is very much of old-school R&B manner, were said revered genre to stick a finger in a wall socket.
In each ringing note, chunkablock chord architecture, and snapped-tight downbeat, thrives the bold truth that Barrence and the free-for-all roustabouts with whom he makes common wildside cause are so intimately proficient in and just plain in love with Rock'n'Soul's capacity for uplift that it would be an injustice of brobdingnagian proportion for them to be doing anything other than this right here.
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Glory, his and the Savages' most recent wax, was issued in 2023 by Folc Records. Its 12 engravings make my above argument with staggering aplomb. "Bad Situation" commences bacchanalian matters with knees-high brass and percussive determination that wise folks shuffling in aisles expect from Barrence and gathered gang.
With trademark insistence (vented via yowling and gleeful whoops), the man whose name adorns the marquee cuts up without filter and at towerblock volume. In fact -- thankfully -- such is his way through and through.
The band that few others would even try to follow includes founding members and guest horns. Mere adjectives would surely falter in the task of conveying members' assorted front-of-class qualities. Listen for your own edification.
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"Right Hand Man" and "I Do My Best to Survive" scatter audacious eminence across airspace, variously asserting sax blats, pumped-to-maximum rhythms, and wise-to-ways-of-nightlife guitar authoritativeness.
That's all in addition to Barrence's howling from the mountaintop. He's our season's Soul-shouting spectacle.
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Just reissued by Cupcakes and Muffins is 2003's Strange Adventures, a collaboration between Barrence and former Radio King fret-massager Mike Dinallo. The two are billed as the Mercy Brothers. They are further enabled by Norwegian Blues guitar nobleman Vidar Busk. Material and performances here are much closer to orthodox Soul than Barrence and the Savages' boisterous ferality.
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