Internationally acclaimed Soul-Blues band from Michigan with a slate of funky and jazzy blues originals and a whole lotta soul.

10 MP3 Songs
BLUES: Blues Vocals, BLUES: Funky Blues

Show all album songs: Change Our Ways Songs


Details:
Root Doctor cuts loose with a string of original songs on 'Change our Ways'

Trying to break new ground in a well-populated genre like the blues can be a dead end. But to inhabit a well-established style and really, really get it right - you can go a long way down that road, if you're up to the task.

This is how a band like Lansing's Root Doctor, despite the rural Southern world its name conjures up, finds itself moving forward in the 21st century and northward into a more citified, soulful and - especially with "Change Our Ways," just released - funk-laden sound.

Singer Freddie Cunningham and bassist James Williams are charter members of this long-lived outfit. But with drummer Rick Bole, a lean, in-the-pocket guitar stylist like Greg Nagy, and especially with the world-class Jim Alfredson on Hammond organ - turbo-charging the band's rhythm and melody chops - Root Doctor is like a new band.

They've got an airtight, punchy ensemble sound that's simply never been there before, and with "Change" - just as in their breakout "Long Time Coming" from last year - there's a new band's excited urgency.

Six of the album's 10 tracks were penned by band members, the first time originals have dominated a Root Doctor album. The propulsive "Blues Will Take Care of You" has become their set opener and something of a theme song; "Keep Our Business Off the Streets" is brightened by the Motor City Horns and a surprisingly churchy bit of vocal harmony.

The covers are choice, too: from the affable lechery of Roy Hytower's "Root Doctor" (a second theme song?) to the 180-proof funk of the Meters' "People Say," the luscious, sanctified vibe of Warren Haynes' "Soul Shine" to the CD's final cut - the Temptation's "I Wish It Would Rain," hushed down with twin cellos and Alfredson's switch to piano.

Alfredson's penetrating keyboard tone is like a high- voltage current running through "Change," reminiscent of the streak of street funk in Organissimo, his jazz trio. Cunningham sings as if somebody's cut him loose - whether he's exhorting us in the title track, winking in "Big Blue Cadillac" or simply singing his heart out in "Rain," you can almost hear the smile in his eyes.
Chris Rietz, Lansing State Journal