Aaron Neville – I Know I’ve Been Changed

Aaron Neville
I Know I’ve Been Changed
EMI Gospel 2010
http://www.emigospel.com/

Reviewed by Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

While listening to Aaron Neville’s latest religious release, I Know I’ve Been Changed, I decided that one thing hasn’t changed at all: his unmistakable voice. Neville’s distinctive vodel and vibrato are as bright and musical as they were on his 1966 breakout hit “Tell It Like It Is.”

Neville grew up amidst the musical gumbo of New Orleans.  He listened to a variety of music on the radio, especially gospel, notably the Dixie Hummingbirds, Soul Stirrers and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.  He emulated the yodeling cowboys of Saturday morning B-pictures. Neville’s voice envelopes all of these influences, which gives him the flexibility to deliver soul love ballads with the same fluidity as sacred songs, which he has already demonstrated on his previous gospel collections, Devotion and Believe.

For this latest work, Neville reunites with New Orleans piano legend Allen Toussaint, whose keyboard mastery is reason enough to give the album a listen. Whether laying down a steady boogie-woogie or tossing in playful riffs, as he does on the album’s best track, “I Want To Live So God Can Use Me,” Toussaint is as omnipresent and compelling on the album as Neville.

The album’s selection of songs includes gospel hymns such as Charles A. Tindley’s “Stand By Me,” the spiritual-cum-Civil-Rights-anthem “Oh Freedom,” and gospel songs like the lovingly rendered but all too brief “There’s a God Somewhere.” Neville covers “I Done Made Up My Mind,” an early hit for the Swan Silvertones; and “Don’t Let Him Ride,” a bluesy, sassy piece also known as “Don’t Let the Devil Ride.”

The accompanying rhythm is so easy and relaxed, the album sounds recorded during an impromptu jam session in the basement of a church. It is this rootsy, comfortable ambience that will endear the CD to traditional gospel enthusiasts as well as fans of blues, folk, soul and roots music.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “I Want To Live So God Can Use Me,” “I Know I’ve Been Changed.”