On ‘Have a Seat,’ Maggie Rose Sits Down with Soul Greatness
Henry Carrigan
Posted On August 19, 2021
From the opening note on Have a Seat, Maggie Rose’s third album, Rose finds herself mingling among the soul sisters who wring every drop of emotion from songs in their soaring, emotional, gut-wrenching vocals: Aretha Franklin, Bonnie Bramlett, Dusty Springfield. Rose inhabits these songs in such a way that her heart and soul pours out of every note.
She recorded Have a Seat at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, and she’s joined on the album by, among others, bassist David Hood of The Swampers and guitarist Will McFarlane, along with her longtime bandmates/collaborators Larry Florman on percussion, guitarist Alex Haddad, and drummer Sarah Tomek.
The album’s opening song, “What Are We Fighting For,” is alone worth the price of admission. Spare gospel organ notes carry in the song before ringing guitar chords and Rose’s vocals quietly enter the temple of soul. Like any great soul standard, the background vocals and chorus circle around Rose’s lead vocals and reach a stratospheric ending. On “Do It,” The Staple Singers meet Sly and the Family Stone meets Wilson Pickett in a horn-drenched funk fest, with Rose’s powerhouse vocals scatting around the instrumental lines.
With ethereal organ strains on the instrumental bridge, the gospel-tinged “Best in Me” would be at home on any album by Candi Staton, and the song showcases Rose’s evocative country soul stylings. Cascading guitar lines snake under Rose’s vocals on “Are we There Yet,” a sweet and languorous soul ballad with echoes of Ashford & Simpson and Minnie Riperton, while the clamorous soul-stirrer “Telephone” conveys how disinformation scuttles about through rumors and gossip. The album closes with a moving and grooving funkster, the rousing Aretha-like “You Got Today.”
Have a Seat invites us to sit at the table with a queen of soul music, but once we hear Rose’s music, we won’t be sitting long. Every song moves us physically and emotionally up out of our chairs and up out of ourselves. There’s a timeless quality to these songs that endures long after the last note on the album fades.
