ALBUM REVIEW: On ‘Saratoga’ Eddie 9V Finds His Soul Groove
Grant Britt
Posted On November 20, 2024
Soulman Eddie 9V must have lived many past lives before this one. Otherwise, there’s no way Brooks Mason’s alter ego could have built up as much soul in such a short time. The voices that speak through him belong to O.V. Wright, James Carr, Al Green, Eddie Hinton—iconic soul purveyors who have soul oozing from their pores. Somehow, this 29-year-old Atlanta native sopped up a hefty load of this elusive stuff to deliver such a resonant message you may just want to get down on your knees and worship at the altar of soul.
Before he was Eddie 9V, Mason bounced around the country as Georgia Flood, and then Preacherman, before hatching the Brooks Mason Blues Band. Tinsley Ellis took notice and mentored Mason, encouraging him to keep the Blues Band name, but the newly christened Eddie didn’t want to limit himself to blues because of his fixation with 1950s through 1970s soul.
That sound leaches deep into Eddie’s presentations on his latest, Saratoga. “Cry Me A River” is not a cover of Julie London’s ’55 sultry cabaret classic, or the 1970 Joe Cocker scorched tonsil redo, but an original written with brother Lane, who also plays bass and co-produced the album.
“Love You All The Way Down” is a scratchy, low-down, sacred soul number on which Eddie testifying that he doesn’t need a book of love to tell him what he already knows about loving his woman. Whereas the title cut is a bit of a change-up—a bluesy country western twang and cowboy lope with Eddie’s barbed wire guitar licks.
“Halo” sounds like Al Green channeling Stevie Wonder with Prince slithering in for a few vocal gymnastics. And “Road to Nowhere” is a the album’s strangest presentation, something like Marty Robbins on ‘shrooms preaching a psychedelic sermon about living in the now.
With Saratoga, Eddie worships at the altar of soul once again, leaving the room occasionally to see what’s going on outside, and putting his own spin on whatever captures his fancy as it wanders by.
Eddie 9V’s Saratoga is out Nov. 22 on Ruf Records.
