Music / classic 60s soul
Review: Lee Fields & The Expressions, Fiddlers
Back in the 60s the big players like Motown and Atlantic may have commandeered the international market in soul music but that was never the whole story. Northern Soul crate diggers and the subsequent Rare Groove movement unearthed a world of small label US music full of overlooked gems and one-hit wonders. That revival brought Lee Fields back out of retirement in the 90s and relaunched his career and now, some 25 years later, he packed out Fiddlers with a generation spanning crowd united in their enthusiasm for the man himself.
Things were warmed up nicely by a well-judged set from DJ John Stapleton, himself one of Bristol’s longest-serving (and finest) crate diggers. He conjured up a vintage vibe of soul, funk and R&B which welcomed the band onstage for the obligatory tight, blasting introductory number. It did its job – the crowd packed in from the bars to provide a fine reception for Lee Fields arrival, bouncing on stage and striking poses in impeccable blazer and white slacks.
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For a man who released his first record in 1969 he looked impressively well maintained and his onstage energy kept him moving throughout the next hour. His raw-edged voice, with its echoes of James Brown, was as strong and consistent as ever, and it all added up to a proper timewarp back to the days when soul was soul and ‘disco’ was the place you went to dance to it. Hard-nosed songs like Work To Do and Coming Home contrasted with slow-dance ballads like You’re What’s Needed In My Life with its Al Green-type testifying. The only sense of contemporary soul came in It Rains Love, the cooler jazzy title track of his latest album.
In keeping with the revivalist feel of things Lee went through the checklist of arm-waving, call and response choruses and getting us to look into the eyes of the one we care about … all of which went down splendidly with so obliging an audience. And there was, of course, the tribute to ‘all the beautiful ladies’ who keep their man ‘pleased right down to his knees’. There was no trace of irony from the stage about this soul-man trope, of course, but just for a moment the timewarp might have flickered for the audience.
If Lee’s onstage energy was unflagging the same could not be said for the inaptly named The Expressions. Their playing was tight and effective throughout but, as far as appearances went, they mostly looked pretty underwhelmed and Expressionless. Nevertheless they wigged out nicely for Faithful Man, a disco-funk workout big on brass, Hammond and wah-wah guitar that heralded the end of the set. Of course there was the requisite wait and then the triumphal return to the stage for the big encore – the 2002 hit Honey Dove, an impassioned plea to not ‘leave me like this’. But we did, anyway, albeit happy and grateful for the proper slice of old-school soul we’d just been delivered.
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