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| The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker - Kaboom! |
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| Written by Bob Townsend | |
 The Dynamites featuring Charles WalkerKaboom! [Outta Sight] Get It at Amazon  Anyone who's ever been to a chitlin' circuit show and revue will be thrilled by the appropriately titled Kaboom! - the debut of Nashville's The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker. It's one of those rare recordings that manages to capture the dynamics of another place and time, while still sounding fresh and, well, just really damn funky. Walker, a Nashville native, is an unreconstructed soul man, who sings and shouts something like James Brown-meets-Otis Redding. Seriously. Walker got his start recording in the late '50s, and later had singles released on Chess, Decca and several smaller, indie labels. After long stints living and working in Europe, he returned to Nashville in the '90s, and later joined up with The Dynamites. Led by guitarist Leo Black (a.k.a. Bill Elder) - who writes, arranges and produces most of the band's material - The Dynamites play a rhythm-heavy mix of '50s R&B, '60s soul, and '70s funk, with nods to jazz and even a touch of go-go. A full compliment of saxophones, trumpet, organ, bass, drums and percussion make the ensemble's live performances swinging affairs, with lots of extended workouts and call-and-response. But it's Walker who holds center stage, sweating and testifying amid relentless bursts of beats and riffs. And he animates Kaboom! with the same sort of smoldering passion. The disc's instrumental opening track, "Body Snatcher," serves as a fine warm-up to star time - letting the band stretch out and create a greasy groove that builds through cycles of tension and release, and eventually brings on Walker. And when he joins the fracas on "Own Thing," the excitement reaches a whole other level. The rest of the disc is filled with plenty of equally gritty and groovy stuff. "This is just too funky to be true," Walker proclaims on the elastic jam, "Can You Feel It?" And later, on "Way Down South," he sings, "Way down South - where it can be so hot/ Oh - it can be so cool." Those lines are pretty much a perfect summation of the explosive soul power of Kaboom! and The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker. |
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