Soul survivor: One of the best things to happen to pop music this century



Dexys

Duke of York’s Theatre, London Until April 27 5/5



It can’t be pointed out too often that the entertainment industry is lying to us about what constitutes soul music. The clue is in the name.



Soul isn’t singing a certain way, or playing to a particular beat. It’s the expression of feeling. It’s capturing the spirit that gave the music its name, not creating a lifeless replica of its sound.

The first of nine nights at the Duke of York's Theatre in London surpassed even last year's astonishing performances from Dexys

Most of what’s currently sold as soul is as mislabelled as horsemeat lasagne. If you want the genuine article, the best place to start right now is with a 59-year-old who made his name in Birmingham. And that’s Birmingham, West Midlands, not Birmingham, Alabama.



In the Eighties, Kevin Rowland was the leader and driving force of Dexys Midnight Runners. He didn’t so much approach soul as attack it, with the ear of a connoisseur and the fervour of a religious revivalist reaching out for salvation.



Somehow he contrived to sell millions of records while doing so, and to redefine the genre. Banjos and Irish folk tunes, for instance, had not previously been a notable feature.



Then, in 1985, came Don’t Stand Me Down, today cherished as the group’s masterpiece. It was reviewed poorly, sold dismally, and all but ended the band as a creative entity for the better part of 30 years.

When they resurfaced in 2012, their name truncated to Dexys, it was reasonable to guess they were joining the wave of cash-in reunions. Until, that is, you heard their album, only their fourth.



One Day I’m Going To Soar is glorious, as were the shows which accompanied its release.

I can’t think of another band of comparable vintage who could eclipse their old favourites with a complete run-through of their latest record.



One Day I’m Going To Soar is what would once have been called a concept album, although it has none of the associated excesses or conceits.



It’s an autobiographical tragicomedy – the life and loves of Kevin Rowland, or an eponymous character very much like him – created with obsessive focus and savage self-scrutiny.

A theatrical rendition of the complete album is ideally suited to songs already packed with dialogue and drama.

The first of nine nights at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London surpassed even last year’s astonishing performances.



At the heart of the show, and the album, are the five numbers that chart our narrator’s falling for, wooing, winning and spurning his object of desire, played, and sung, by Madeleine Hyland.



The staging beautifully tracks her passage from impossible dream creature, via flesh-and-blood lover, to all-too-human victim of heartbreak.



We first see her draped luxuriously over a raised chaise longue, upstage.



As Rowland extols her charms to his sidekick on the lascivious She Got A Wiggle, she is all but encased in a thought bubble above his head.



Three songs later, she is crouched in pain as the band plays on briskly behind her.



When she excoriates Rowland on Incapable Of Love, it evokes the way people really argue: the accusations and the evasions; the wounded fury and the self-serving rationalisations; the industrial-strength language.

It’s magnificent, and funny, and excruciating: pure artifice that feels thoroughly real, making it near-perfect both as theatre and as pop.



You have to go back to the Seventies to find artists who devoted such time, care and detail, so much tenderness and cruelty, to recording a single affair: Marvin Gaye on Here, My Dear, or Millie Jackson with Caught Up.



Kevin Rowland isn’t diminished in such company. Nor is his band: seven instrumentalists who deliver all the verve and sensitivity the music demands.



Once the One Day I’m Going To Soar segment of the show is over, the now customary and sometimes hokey back-catalogue selection draws heavily on Don’t Stand Me Down.

Rowland was decades ahead of his audience, who now, with age, possess the patience to appreciate it. And it’s wonderful, but no more so than its belated successor.

One Day I’m Going To Soar, and these performances of it, ranks among the best things to happen to pop music this century. This, here and now, is what soul sounds like.

Click here to purchase tickets





THIS WEEK'S TOP CD RELEASES

By ADAM WOODS

Frank Turner fifth album (left) ought now to bring him household-name stardom. Phoenix (right) prove that France can turn out fabulous Anglophone bands



Frank Turner

Tape Deck Heart

Polydor, out tomorrow 3/5



Frank Turner was Danny Boyle’s warm-up man for the Olympics Opening Ceremony last summer, but he didn’t need a leg-up, having headlined Wembley Arena a few months earlier. His fifth album ought now to bring him household-name stardom, and spirited folk-punk-pop anthems such as Recovery and The Way I Tend To Be suggest it very likely will; there’s a bit of Billy Bragg in his delivery, a bit of R.E.M. in his guitars. Click here to purchase





Phoenix

Bankrupt!

Atlantic, out tomorrow 4/5



With Serge Gainsbourg and Françoise Hardy to its credit, French pop music never was the dud we once thought. But it still takes Phoenix to prove that France can turn out fabulous Anglophone bands as well. Bankrupt! polish their suave and sonically perfect sound to an even higher shine than usual, garlanding the danceable, pin-sharp tunes with clipped, funky guitars and ribbons of synth. Click here to purchase





On Edgeland (left), Karl Hyde's solo debut, he paints fond, melancholy pictures of his adopted county of Essex. Snoop Dogg has rebranded himself as Snoop Lion (right), recruiting guests including Busta Rhymes



Karl Hyde

Edgeland

Universal, out tomorrow 4/5



Karl Hyde had one of the most heard voices in the country in 1996, when Born Slippy gave his techno group Underworld a Trainspotting-assisted shove into the mainstream. On Edgeland, Hyde’s solo debut, he paints fond, melancholy pictures of his adopted county of Essex, particularly the forgotten edges, ‘where the city crumbles into fields’. The gently purposeful musical swell recalls Talk Talk at their prettiest. Click here to purchase





Snoop Lion

Reincarnated

RCA, out tomorrow 3/5

The entertaining conceit of Reincarnated, Snoop Dogg’s detour into reggae and Jamaican dancehall, is that Snoop believes himself to be Bob Marley reborn. A convert to Rastafarianism, he has rebranded himself as Snoop Lion here, recruiting guests including Busta Rhymes, Akon, Chris Brown, Rita Ora and his own daughter, Cori B. Lighters Up, with its horns and Marley-inspired positivity, is a highlight. Click here to purchase



