As soon as you hear Baby, I’m Sorry, you know that you are listening to not only someone who knows precisely what makes soul music work but someone who also knows how to keep this long-established genre relevant to a whole new audience. You could detail all the iconic songs he wrote with Tower of Power. You can reveal that his songwriting work with Kanye West has been honoured with BMI awards. You could focus on his Honorary Doctorate from California State University in Fine Arts.
You could, but it is more fitting to celebrate the music he makes. Baby, I’m Sorry echoes everything that made smooth and sassy 70’s soul so potent. But he can take such seductive sounds and still make them fresh as well as familiar to a whole new audience, and that is his greatest skill.
Soulful, seductive and sensational…what more could you ask for? What indeed…
