ALBUM REVIEW: Songs and Sounds of Social Justice Fire Up The Reverend Shawn Amos’ ‘Soul Brother No. 1’
Grant Britt
Posted On May 2, 2024
Adopting James Brown’s mantle as Soul Brother No. 1 for an album title is a ballsy move. But it quickly becomes apparent that on his latest project, The Reverend Shawn Amos is not trying to subvert Brown’s legacy or sound, but rather carrying on the tradition of soul artists who have paved the way for Black voices to effect social change through music.
Amos, the son of chocolate chip cookie purveyor Wally “Famous” Amos, journeyed through a pop and blues period before landing on a soul platform. In 2022, he penned a thinly veiled childhood memoir, Cookies & Milk (ND review) with his protagonist, Ellis Johnson, relating his experiences growing up with a hustler father. The 2023 sequel, Ellis Johnson Might Be Famous, spurred a further interest in found family in soul music.
Amos wrote or co-wrote all but one tune on the record, a Sly Stone cover. The material here is backed by a funk soundtrack that owes more to P-Funk than to Brown.
The opener, “Revelation,” could be a companion piece or a follow-up to Gil Scott Heron’s 1970 offering “The Revolution Will Not be Televised.” Sounding like he’s backed by Jimi Hendrix, Amos declares that he won’t stand outside with murderers, idolaters, and “everyone who loves and practices falsehood” since he’s had his revelation.
On one of the most powerful cuts, “What It Is To Be Black,” is funk-wrapped gospel with Amos and a choir chanting that mantra before Amos steps forward to present his view:
The Reverend Shawn Amos (photo by Fred Siegel)
What it is
Is a debt gone too long unpaid
What it is
To be Black
What it is
To be always amazed
At the lack
Of insistence
That we all will be free
When we take freedom seriously.
“Back to the Beginning” is a swampy gospel with The McCrary Sisters crooning churchily in the background, snippets of “Amazing Grace” lyrics woven into the song’s fabric as Amos begins a journey of self-discovery:
I’m going back
To the beginning
So I can see myself
I can meet myself
I was lost
Now I’m found
But
I’m not all the way home.
Plenty of soul abounds on the record, but Amos sounds more like Lenny Kravitz than James Brown on “Stone Cold Love,” revitalizing a bit of his past history as a bluesman with some James Cotton-style blues harp injections.
The Sly Stone-shaded “It’s All Gonna Change for the Better” holds no sympathy for those who got us into the current state of disarray, but promises a brighter day if we all pull together for change.
Amos leaves us with a glimmer of hope on another relentlessly upbeat Sly Stone-influenced cut. “Things Will Be Fine” once again features The McCrary Sisters churching up the joint with some Mavis Staples-flavored help from Grammy-nominated soulstress Denise Carite (Mary J. Blige, Usher).
“Things will be fine if we just let it,” Amos promises, and like his dad, he’s a good enough salesman to make us want to believe him.
The Reverend Shawn Amos’ Soul Brother No. 1 is out May 3 on Immediate Family Records.
