The Stoned soul rebel

Tracing the outlines of Lewis Taylor's radical craft

By Kandia Crazy Horse

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We are a nation of Tobeys. Talking about the Anglo appellation of the finally cowed Kunta Kinte and the demise of black vernacular culture. Contemporary R&B — an "urban" format oddly not elastic enough to embrace the progressive soul of British singer-songwriter Lewis Taylor — is rife with pop personalities reviving minstrelsy. These black po-mo minstrels of both sexes (see Kelly, R. and Knowles, Beyoncé) would just as soon sell their Big Mama's bottle tree to a SoHo gallery as deal with the devil for more Viacom airtime. One nation under the bling is what we got, and fleeting triumphs like Three Six Mafia's Oscar win are limited in scope.

Aside from a current, obsessive relationship with Taylor's oeuvre — particularly last fall's stateside debut, Stoned (Hacktone) — what served as a final warning bell about black culture's critical condition was Sly Stone's recent Grammy Awards appearance. The blogosphere and corporate media alike lit up at Stone's much ballyhooed return to live performance on the Grammy stage, most journalists and armchair pundits agreeing it was a disaster. Well, they got it half right: The slew of "tribute" artists, including esteemed dance producer Nile Rodgers, black alternative wannabe Van Hunt, and American Idol winner Fantasia, participated in a disastrous medley of Sly and the Family Stone's paradigm-shifting pop classics. None managed to take us higher save Stone himself, hunchbacked and resplendent in platinum Mohawk and shiny leather. In his prime Stone always had the greatest flash threads and the baddest rides, and his complex relationship to the street undermined his spirit in the end. But he also had superb skills and the flow to back up his boasts: "I'm a soul writer," Stone once sang. "A poet."

I mention the consummate Space Oddity, for his sublime work haunts Taylor's Stoned in particular, and Stone's career legacy impacts the British rock 'n' soul artist's potential in general. The key reason Taylor's long career, which began in the '80s, has remained opaque to Yankee audiences is that the music of his early solo work for Island, in the late '90s, confounded Philistine rock-bizzers. Taylor has claimed Marvin Gaye, Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, and a few others as musical heroes. Generally, his guitar playing can be quite Zappa-esque, and the Stoned track "Throw Me a Line" features a riff lifted from John Lennon's "Cold Turkey." Taylor also tackles Gaye's famed mid-'70s collaborations with musician Leon Ware on "Positively Beautiful" and essays Philly soul with a cover of "Stop, Look, Listen."

This type of sonic schizophrenia is the hallmark of Stone's legend, the very thing that catapulted him to iconic status, and any followers playing in this idiom must reckon with his multiracial, multigendered aesthetic. Taylor will always have a hard row to hoe, as the response to Stone's Grammy turn demonstrated. Per cultural critic Greg Tate, heralding Sly surfacing: "Lovely — still a badass, ain't he? Still putting the poor chillun — black, white, young'uns, old'uns — to shame with they [sic] faux renegade asses."

Taylor has struggled with bearing the weight of badass in the past, including narco-haze and sonic doubt. And there are also the problems of race and gender as they intersect with so-called neosoul. Although it's rarely discussed overtly, it's clear Taylor's reality as a London Jew who could cause Ware to break down and cry added to label folks' marketing anxieties. To be sure, they could see the dollar value in the discovery of a new Elvis, but the perennial hurdle of black Brits finding Taylor too rock and of (presumably white) rock audiences viewing him as too soulful was too much to overcome. Which brings us back to Tobey — docile MTV minstrels peddling fabulous lifestyles and quick rewards 24-7 are far too strung out on the corporate teat to theorize about Africana-informed cosmic consciousness. And so they are signed by the dozens and rolled out on the assembly line, while "difficult" artists of Taylor's ilk languish in the shadows.

And then, as the last election was won by triggering irrational homophobia, the sweetness of Taylor's voice must also be mentioned. His nation groove is much more global village than dystopia, seamlessly uniting '70s sensitive-man confessional vibes with ancient Sahelian falsetto. The voice is high tenor and has keening qualities in the tradition of postwar greats Ronnie Dyson, Donny Hathaway, Carl Anderson, Phillippe Wynne, and Al Green. Indeed, "Send Me An Angel" reads as po-mo sissy soul. But R&B's badasses — check the late Wicked Pickett and Stone's own intermittent basso profundo — are mostly still rewarded for adhesion to the ultramacho Teddy Pendergrass template. Taylor, resembling a Tim Burton hero, cannot pull that off. And he might do no better by eschewing the black influences, as he's done in the past, for rockist ones, since critics cringe at the Darkness's Eurovision of post-Prince falsetto too.

On the eve of Taylor's inaugural US tour, critical issues surrounding black genius and the crisis of the artist in the digital age are aswirl. That Taylor is a "white chocolate soul" artist in the small pantheon that includes the likes of Daryl Hall and Teena Marie only further complicates the dialogue. Here's hoping Taylor's live dates serve as a much needed catalyst to inspire cultural thinkers and remind everyone that sublime art is still possible. The composer of Stoned — equally a drifter in the ninth circle of Dante's hell and a strutting Priapus on the Love March — is a badass who can effect aesthetic reconciliation through his subversive process of sonic passing. No faux renegade he, Taylor could be a Kunta, judging by the power of his sway over the intersecting contempo R&B, prog soul, and Woodstock Nation audience present at his US debut, at NYC's Bowery Ballroom. At any rate, somebody needs to navigate the way out of the autodestructive cul-de-sac of black pop today. *

Lewis Taylor's March 27 show at Great American Music Hall has been canceled due to illness.