James Hunter:
The Hard Way

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Sexy songs to charm your pants off

Sure, James Hunter’s music is an intentional throwback to a different era, but he picked a great one: that heady time when Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson crooned satin-smooth soul over cool jazz/blues arrangements; when a guy could sing simple lyrics and lay on pizzicato strings without a whit of irony. What a wonderful world this could be—especially if you sex up the suave delivery with a stuttering, lo-fi guitar break or James Brown growl. With analog recording, Hunter’s buttery voice and primitive Les Paul playing and a muscular double-sax section, this follow-up to People Gonna Talk re-renders the art of musical seduction even more convincingly than Hunter’s mentor Van Morrison.