Danny Brooks & the Rockin’ Revelators – Live at the Palais Royale

Danny Brooks & the Rockin’ Revelators
Live at the Palais Royale – Soulsville III
HIS House Records 2009
www.dannybrooksmusic.com

“When the trouble of the day gets in your way, hold on to yesterday” is a line from Danny Brooks’ “Hold On.” It could be his motto.

Brooks, the blue-eyed soulster from Canada, is back with the third installment of his Soulsville series. It is a recording of a May 2009 performance at Toronto’s Palais Royale. Part blues, part soul, part gospel, part swamp-pop, Live at the Palais Royale is all heart. In fact, it is hard to think of a current singer who demonstrates more admiration for ‘60s and ‘70s soul classics, especially those made in Memphis and Muscle Shoals, than Brooks.

The mainstay of Brooks music is a rootsy southern gumbo of boogie woogie piano, chugging blues harmonica, slide and electric guitar, punctuating horn section, B3, bass and drums. Brooks’ gritty vocals are supported by the dazzling harmonies of Amoy and Ceceal Levy. It’s the kind of music you hear emanating from the half-open door of a club on Beale or in the French Quarter. Upon closer inspection, however, you hear in the lyrics messages of encouragement from a man who has clearly traveled a rough road and credits personal salvation for where he is today. On songs like “Righteous Highway,” for example, Brooks delivers his testimony straight-between-the-eyes, no chaser.

Brooks’ clever way with a lyric is apparent on tracks such as the teeth-gritting “Down on my Knees,” on which he likens the devil to a “mathematician” who “likes to subtract and divide.” He concludes, “I’ve never stood half as tall as when I’m down on my knees.” “Other Side of the Cloud,” ranked #1 Song of the Year by the Rhythm and Blues DJ Association, sounds based on an old folk saying: “The sun is always shining on the other side of the cloud.”

On “Still Got This Thing for You” and “Hold On”, Brooks waxes autobiographical about growing up with the soul and gospel records his brother would bring home from Buffalo, or listening to the transistor radio tuned to Buffalo radio stations. These songs serve as the soundtrack for Brooks’ life, and on “Still Got This Thing for You,” he even interpolates titles of soul classics in the lyrics (and did I hear the yeah-yeah-yeah riffs from the Falcons’ “I Found a Love”?).

Brooks’ energetic cover of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Somebody on Your Bond” features the Levy ladies on superb background vocals. Amoy and Ceceal Levy deserve their own CD project, if they don’t already have one.

Imagine walking into a small club in the mid-south and finding a saved Bruce Springsteen jamming with a few of the E Street Band for an intimate group, and you have the feeling of Live at the Palais Royale.

Four of Five Stars