REVIEW: MAVIS STAPLES-WE GET BY

4/5

Staples It Together.

Soul staples don't get much more signature than Mavis Staples. The iconic powerhouse gospel singer was already a legend. And one for countless years and decades of told influence. Like Aretha. Like Stevie. Like Diana Ross. Sam Cooke. You may have heard of The Staples Singers family affair. But being a prominent voice through the decades of MLK, JFK, Bob Dylan and Muhammad Ali, how about her work as a civil rights activist? Singing about the rhythm and blues has already inducted her into the rock and roll Hall of Fame. Not to mention the blues one. And she's stayed as relevant as her cause. Staying the course and working with legends like the late, great Prince, mainstream mass appeals like Gorillaz and legends of the future like singer/songwriter Hozier. But now the Chicago great who has been in this game for more than a half century and decades change starts a whole new legacy. Great singer/songwriter of our generation Ben Harper has already worked with his fair share of legends like himself. From the Innocent Criminals, to the Blind Boys Of Alabama. Relentless7 to Fistful of Mercy. And blues icon Charlie Musselwhite to his own idol, his dear mama, Ellen Harper. But now in producing the new 'We Get By' album of Mavis 'the mother to us all' Staples with his own signature. The perfect marriage collaboration like Rick Rubin and the man in black, Johnny Cash. This is Mavis Staples' American recordings. Harper spins his definitive and diverse discography as the most selfless and amazing artist of our time to classic records of our past that in times like this in this life help us get by.

Classic like the chain-link cover Gordon Parks, 1956 photo of kids looking at the ferris wheel of an amusement park from behind a fence (you seeing this Trump?), this testament is timeless from the moment Staples struts her evergreen stuff at 80 years old over Harper's hallmark guitar riffs on the opening call to 'Change' over the decades. You can see why legacy makers like the all dancing new bohemian American dream of Maggie Rogers with the other best album of the year ('Heard It In A Past Life' that hasn't come off constant repeat since January and won't until this time next year), who performed at Mavis' 80th birthday party concert take so much inspiration from this icon. Although that backstage International Women's Day photo from this pioneers Twitter timeline says it all in a thousand words from Rogers in awe face as Staples with her hands cupped offers her wisdom pearls. Just like here as she sings, "Gotta change around here/Can't go on this way/Things gotta change around here/Say it loud, say it clear/Things gonna change around here" like heed should have already been heard and learned...for decades. Before duetting with the dynamic Harper on the title track and equally rocking to the souls core 'We Get By' after 'Anytime'. Where Staples sings, "Give me a one-way ticket/Somewhere I've never been/I'm rock, paper, scissors/And I'm bound to win". But bringing 'Brothers and Sisters' together like the family names on Ben's Beatles 'John, Paul, George and Ringo' inspired t-shirt in the above picture and lasting lyrics like, "We belong to each other/Brothers and sisters (Brothers and sisters)/So be strong for each other/Brothers and sisters (Brothers and sisters)/Got to be brave in a scary world/Brothers and sisters (Brothers and sisters)." Showing under the sun we are all one big family in this world.

Slow burning on the smouldering 'Heavy On My Mind', Mavis muses on the fight or flight choices we have today and tomorrow in this life or death,"Locked in a safe/In a cage, in a cell/We can wait out the storm/Or we can stand in the rain/Gonna have to mourn/Or hide from some pain." Whilst the upbeat 'Sometime' claps in blues dance unison like Harper's 'Get Up' collaboration with Musselwhite 'We Can't End This Way' here on 'Get By'. That one waltzed it's way to a Grammy. This one two steps to legendary status. Forget platinum. This record is the classic gold standard. Just like it's standout track, 'Never Needed Anyone'. The brooding blue ballad worthy of Billie or cigarette ash bars from yester decade all staring at the stage of an icon in her own spotlight. The kind of court Staples held 50 years ago and still does to this day on a tribute to that era as timeless as the classics she wrote back then in her prime. Wait...decades and decades, pushing a century later, she's still in her prolific prime. Even 'Stronger' like said song and the sense of self she gives her listeners. "Samson tore the building down/Moses climbed to higher ground/And when it comes to me and you/There ain't nothing I wouldn't do," on a song where the singing tells us nothing in the world is as strong as Mavis' love for her muse. A "house on the hill" or a "face on a dollar bill" is just bricks and mortar and spare change in comparison. Just like on 'Chance On Me' where she tells us "I don't need a sky full of stars", or a symphony. More like "just one violin" as she bares her soul, "Wondering, wandering/Lightning and thundering/Longing and hungering/Love gives us no warning." This is the raw elements of the genre in all its glory. Closing things up like last orders of the blues, 'Hard To Leave' shares songwriting DNA with the set stealing, 'Never Needed Anyone.' "Late night calls of longing/Pressing play/On Marvin Gaye/Trying to right the wrongings/Softly reaching over for your touch upon my sleeve/It's always hard, so hard to leave." Before the 'Change' reprise closer of 'One More Change' brings us right back to the opening call just like the testament that this testimonial is a tribute to the same message this activist for civil rights delivered half centuries ago. And that's the point. The more we seek to change, the more things move in that same direction, no matter what barrier has to be broken like a fence climbed or a wall leaped. "Been holding on too long to let go/Been running too hard to slow down."  Even without Abraham, Martin and John. Or even Obama. We can still get by thanks to the change Staples brings back together. Forget the bad weather. Mavis' soul shines bright for life. Forget pushing a century. Timeless artists craft forever. And there's a message in this music that will always be read like those willing to lend their ears to listen. Give it up. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Change', 'We Get By Feat Ben Harper', 'Never Needed Anyone'.

REVIEW: NORAH JONES-BEGIN AGAIN

4/5

Keeping Up With The Jones.

Sunrise again. Apart from Alicia Keys, there is nothing more New York than Norah Jones. Apart from Broadway and bagels that is...and come to think of it, how about Broadway Bagel? If you've never been there, you've never been to New York my friend. And if you correct me and say you have, well time to call it like it is and go there twice. Anyway I digress. "New York City such a beautiful disease", Miss Jones once sang back in her time with the Peter Malick Group. And only someone with Norah's playlist could call you a disease and make it sound like she loves you as much as you do her. Jazz club blues, smoky, smouldering vocals. Smoother than velvet, but like a revolver to touch. Ever since her encrusted in diamond debut in 2002, 'Come Away With Me' and it's self titled beautiful ballad (have you ever heard something sung so movingly as, "come away with me in the night/come away with me and I'll never stop loving you") Miss Jones has racked up Grammy's like Miss Keys and been as significant to the great American songbook as Springsteen. 9 majors and counting. Striking several significant solo notes and numbers. Like the 'Sunrise' morning after of 'Feels Like Home'. Or the in her own lane and stride of 'Not Too Late'. She's also been a major part of the classic collaborative process too. Duetting with everyone from Ray Charles to Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest. Andre 3000 of OutKast to The Lonely Island. And Rolling Stone Keith Richards to that talking, swearing, fuzzy bear 'Ted'. 'Take Off Your Cool' that never goes out of style and the bluesy inspired 'Illusion' the playlist pick standouts of this set she's also collected together and released. Jones has kept up, cutting records with Dangermouse, Daniele Luppi and Jack White and albums with her own bands like the super girl group Puss N Boots and The Little Willie's (Nelson not penises). She even made an Every Brothers covers tribute album with Green Days Billie Joe Armstrong, 'Foreverly'. All this has helped her solo work soar. From the change of tune in 'The Fall'. To the 'Little Broken Hearts' that pushed and cracked the envelope further for her most diverse set yet. And then in 2016 the Billboard top jazz artist of the 2000's decade took it back to basics and her signature sound for 'Day Breaks' like another sunrise on a new morning.

But now like a Keira Knightley movie getting over a douchey Adam Levine with the help of the Hulk whose just been fired by Mos Def it's time for Norah Jones to 'Begin Again'. And again this is something different from the dynamic Jones of traditional music texture. On the same day the South Korean mega pop outfit BTS arm themselves with another seven seals, Jones also releases a seven track album in what seems to be the new Spotify trend halfway house between EP's and LP's (SP's anyone?). Just see all those Kanye West produced works in one week last year from his own album, to the latest from NaS and Kid Cudi. Artists today know that in this social media age of the swipe audiences attention spans are waning as the classic album is dying to this cherry picking time for your favourite songs. Even so Norah still delivers her most compelling, cohesive set in years for something that plays like a short classic album from a bygone pre-digital era that didn't have to hit double figures to be top ten. These songs collected together almost like a greatest hits of her last couple of years or a Smashing Pumpkins week by week concept album over a calender are from sessions Jones has recorded since her last album, vowing to never stop writing and singing and to just she what she's got. It's a different and definitive route that works for Norah like her most amazing album artwork yet (think the video to Taylor Swift's 'Style' meets something her contemporary Ray LaMontagne would do). As in this time of an electric Joni Mitchell, Maggie Rogers showing she is the all American star of the future next door now, Norah Jones shows she is still more than a legend, but someone still crafting her own creative legacy for listeners, moving with the time signatures.

Dylan would be proud of the outstanding opener 'My Heart Is Full' too. This chant call to conscious arms looks at the world today held at the length of one and offers a hand and resolute chorus in unison. Before breaking into a beat of polished production straight out of the independent side of mainstream music's playlist playbook. Old meets new as the times are still a'changing, yet somehow staying the same like this vintage modern hallmark new start from the top from Jones. It like this all sounds like nothing Norah has ever done before. And she and we are all the better for it. As she asks, "are we broken" again and again, singing, "I can see (see, see)/People hurting (hurting, hurting)/People preaching (preaching, preaching)/People watching (watching, watching)/Some are listening (listening, listening)/Some are hearing (hearing, hearing)/Many talking (talking, talking)/Others working (working, working)" and at the top of her voice "I will rise" even more to the fade of one of the most important and influential things, simple in its nature, but profound in its statement that she's ever put down. Whilst the title track is back on that 'Day Breaks' signature, yet making that sound shimmer and shine in time with someone who knows a classic record of their own making is their daily bread and butter, on both sides. As 'It Was You' segues into a more grown up love yearn. Before 'A Song With No Name' over spaced acoustics dedicates short but lasting lines like, "If I go on my own/And I see you in my dreams/And I hope to again/I have silently schemed/If I had a gun/If I had a knife/If I was the one/If I was your wife". This sets standout session 'Uh Oh' sounds like a Luppi loop from the Dangermouse 'Seasons Trees' changing age. Whilst the fall piano of 'Wintertime' is the perfect song for that time of year as our pulled coats in N.Y.C. look to still escape that type of breezing and bracing weather. Whilst the perfect closer of this chapter, 'Just A Little Bit' is all you need for these relaxed but focussed sessions of tracks recorded over three days or less to show that this confident but care free collection is exactly what music needs when an artist is in her prime and stride. Purity and the natural order of songwriting and concept creation, birthed off a pad and pen, microphone and instrumental accompaniment. And if this today trend and musical styling really is a new beginning for Jones, then like Sam, play it again. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'My Heart Is Full', 'Uh Oh', 'Just A Little Bit'.

REVIEW: BTS-MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA

4/5

Seoul Mapping.

Alright, alright, alright. If Matthew McConaughey is down with them, then they must be cool. I ain't dazed and confused. Unless Moon Dog has been smoking some of that Snoop Dogg. The 'Dallas Buyers Club' of a 'True Detective' McConaissance can't be wrong. Late Night's Jimmy Fallon can't be wrong. Ellen Degeneres can't be wrong. Selling out Wembley stadium in London, England can't be wrong. TIME magazines iconic cover can't be wrong. The UNITED NATIONS and that stirring speech can't be wrong. The heart of Asia, Seoul and the whole South of Korea can't be wrong.  The entire world singing along on a Richter Scale between One Direction and Beatlemania all in word for word, not Bill Murray in translation Korean can't be wrong. A billion served can't be. An army. A movement. Burning the stage and igniting the studio. The Bangtan Boys. BTS. V, Jin, Jimin, J-Hope, Suga, Jungkook and R.M. They told you to 'Love Yourself' too and you invited them to the Grammy's in tuxedos dancing to Dolly Parton and awarding H.E.R. in Hollywood. Next year, they'll probably win one. Or even have a category invented for them and their K Pop genre for music's Oscars. Tomorrow they will be live from New York for 'Saturday Night'. But today Seoul music's finest and the biggest boy band ever, from the Backstreets to all those other boys are getting 'Persona' personal with their 'Map Of The Soul'.

Google and put a finger on it. Or just go into the map like Joey friends and right from the "YO" jump you'll see that these boys are back like their town that they've put on the soul of this world cities map. And these idols are getting bigger and better than ever like their "what's good Korea" Nicki Minaj remix feature. They're about to be bosses for the whole careers. With collabo duets from everyone from singer of the moment Halsey (the American dream theatre meets candy coloured like the hair video visual of the sugary pop 'Boy With Luv', that even features these dance steppers playing the 'Big' piano) and millennial icon Ed Sheeran ('Make It Right'. That sounds distinctly BTS and sheer Sheeran, all at the same instrumental in synchronicity time) who can both expect their own new army soldiers. There is no 'Fake Love' for these Seoul men who drop the mic once again like their Steve Aoki D.J. set, cake throwing like it's your birthday banger, as they stay in their land for their victory lap, comfortably in the driver's seat with the whole world riding shotgun. And it all begins with the hardest working leader in all of K Pop and mainstream music. The group's official spokesman on the mic and translator R.M. with pure bars like when he hot potato passed it, passed it, back and forth with Washington's Wale, holding his own on 'Change'. With pockets of rhymes, leaving other rappers coming up with lint. Now paid in full, R.M. is releasing playlist mixtapes for fun and free. Like last year's 'mono.' music that he gifted gave right between these idols era of love yourself revolution and this soul persona. One moving, mood music that featured an introspective perspective and shout-out to his hometown 'Seoul', with big in Asia, electric British duo Honne (who also have R.M. jumping back on the remix of their heartbreakingly cool track 'Crying Over You'), one to the testimonial, travel journal tribute traditions of 'Tokyo' and of course the artful, deep look into depression with soaring strength in the beautiful downpour of 'Forever Rain'. For a cool, cohesive set of real music, more personally profound than pop and with a longevity to it that will play for longer than its unofficial full release status. And now with this 'Intro' to 'Persona' going it all alone like his army of one amazing video serving as a trailer, channeling the flow of his favourite rap gods and taking them all to his own language school, R.M. shows he really is a rap monster with delivery for days like FedEx. Real hip-hop is real hip-hop regardless of the language and if you don't get it it's time to Google translate and catch up to this real rap from a real rapper. There isn't a bigger or better way for this album to start than with this Moonchild.

Seven seals track this latest release from BTS that is set to move more millions than those who will be tuning in for NBC's SNL this weekend. These billboard stars are about to be number one on the Hot 100 with a bullet quick sell out like their stadium tours the minute they hit the net. And if you think seven members coming up with just the same amount of tracks as days of the week for this highly anticipated and long awaited release isn't enough, then haven't you learned in this Spotify streaming age already? Rest assured with headphones on that this is just the first route on their 'Map Of The Soul' magic, mystery musical tour. After starring down 'Face Yourself' they had two 'Tears' and 'Answers' to 'Love Yourself' with last year for a holy trinity, big three. And besides music icon Norah Jones released a new album too today. Her beautiful and best in years 'Begin Again', sounding like nothing she's ever put on record before. And guess what? Guess how many tracks long? Yep! A magnificent seven! So come away with that in the night and I will write you a song. We can't wait for the next 'Persona' from these mag 7's, but until then we're having fun getting lost in this journey not destination map. 'Mikrokosmos' is classic BTS. Whilst the computer game closer 'Dionysus' sounds like it could be the epic introduction themes song of an awesome anime. But the real standout here is the on repeat, 'Euphoria' warmth of 'Jamais Vu'. A beautiful ballad of soaring feeling, singing along to "please give me a remedy" and all the love language to yourself later. But it gets much deeper and closer to the heart on 'HOME' (as they sing "For some reason filling this makes it empty faster/The more we're together the more I feel more alone/Half closed eyes, sleepless night/The place where you are"), for this club of billionaire boys who on their own 'Burn The Stage' movie from theatres to YouTube weren't afraid to admit that despite the biggest stages and Korean dollar bucks they weren't immune to the effects of depression and other mental health afflictions that come with this type of pressure on young people in the social media age of anxiety today. Especially those in the most glaring of spotlights from the paparazzi to the fans and the critics ready to write them off again and again. No matter how many times they prove them wrong, over and over again. It's a long and lonely road, hotel room to hotel room, where you're far from home and can't even remember the city. But still night after night these kids take to the stage and make music, maturing as young men and real positive role models for a world of fake love and false idols. But these genuine ones are offering light to a nation and its young men plagued by downing depression and rising suicide rates like they are the oppression of the north. Yet fighting all this with the same love that the world has been told again and again is all you need there is no one better right now to put that notion and where they're coming from on the map. With 'Persona' it's getting personal. Even with the power of South Korea girl group BlackPink biting at their heels, looks like these artists and music for healing are still a Big Hit. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Intro: Persona', 'Boy With Luv' Feat Halsey, 'Jamais Vu'.

SONG FOR THE MOMENT: JOHN LEGEND-PREACH

5/5

Practice What He Preach.

Tears are being shed all the way through the Academy's auditorium. There's not a dry eye in the house at the Oscars this year as these two sing together. But we aren't talking about this year's close coupling of pop turned movie megastar Lady Gaga and 'A Star Is Born' star and director Bradley Cooper's 'Shallow', as "Ha...woah, oh, oh" soaring as that is. But a much deeper cut almost amazingly a half decade back in 2015. Before #OscarsSoWhite. Before Trump. But echoing pain from the past that still needs healing to this very day as you read this. Collaborating for then the third official time ('The Rain' came after) after the classic collection 'Be's' beautiful 'They Say' and the sheer power of 'The Believer' off that and 'The Dreamer' album, greatest conscious rapper of all time Common and the legacy making by the record like his last name himself, John Legend and the strongest choir in unison with G.O.O.D. Music brought 'Glory' to the Oscars and the most inspirational figure of peace Martin Luther King Jr's message from 'Selma'. Stars like the King himself David Oyelowo, Coretta's Carmen Ejogo and even Captain Kirk, Chris Pine were streaming with emotion that night.

Fast forward to this New Year and following the fun of bringing a classic Christmas record under our tree this year with old and his own standards like the Nat King Cole and Bublé best in 'A Legendary Christmas', John wakes up in the middle of the night with his dear wife Chrissy Teigen sleeping by his side. He hears an electricity buzzing out side in his reverie and walks out of his room and straight into the middle of the open night where he sees a solitary door aglow waiting for him to walk through. Which he does right into a Basketball gym that belongs to the high-school team the Birmingham Patriots. He sees a light, flashing from another doorway and before he can register what is happening as he wakes up kids emerge from it, running and screaming. "Every day I wake and/Everything is broken/Turnin' off my phone just to get out of bed/Get home every evening/And history's repeating/Turning off my phone 'cause it's hurting my chest". And so begins the start of the song and vivid visual that evokes the same struggle in John Legend's powerful 'Preach'. A song arguably as important, to this time relevant and even more incendiary in its incentive for a movement to march than his 'Glory' with Common. But with the man in the mirror reflecting the world call to action of the bridge that closes this millennial generation gap of, "And heaven knows I'm not helpless, yeah/But what can I do?/I can't see the use in me crying/If I'm not even tryna make the change I wanna see," Legend furthering more than his does more than just give us the song in a career of 'Ordinary People' relatable classics and 'All Of Me' wedding first dances with much more meaning. Leaving us with a collective conscious lump in our throats John shows us that it's about more than he, us or the music. Whilst at the same time showing us he is one of the most important and influential artists of our time and the closest thing we have this generation to the coming change of a Sam Cooke. So far his 'Practice What You Preach' crowdfunder has raised almost $19,000 of its 55 thou dollar target just weeks after this videos release. And he is also working on a documentary series with the family of Trayvon Martin. Another young life lost way too early and unbelievably now so long, but still so fresh ago that this song is dedicated to.

"I can't sit and hope/I Can't just sit and pray, that/I can find a love, when/All I see is pain
Falling to my knees/And though I do believe/I can't just preach, baby, preach/Whoa, oh/I can't just preach, baby, preach," John sings with everything he's got in the middle of this same night as the blue and red flashing lights of a police car cruises behind him, stalking his steps as like a pastor he lets out the full force of his ad-libs to show the fight in him pushing through the pain. It's an iconic visual and moment in a video as real as it harrowingly gets. As the next day this is the same cop car that in broad daylight pulls over two young black men who comply fully. From dropping the keys out the window to walking backwards towards the guns drawn with their hands up. Meanwhile nearby a young white man looking anxious and distraught is sitting in his own car undisturbed with a black bag riding passenger. John then sings from the pulpit in church at a memorial for the same young man. The same young man who was pulled over and then shot down by the police whilst all his peacefully protesting friend can possibly do is watch with a camera phone and record another injustice that the courts will end up swiping away with no application to the truth. Meanwhile whilst this happens and yet another grieving mother shaking a chain-link like prison bar fence is having her child taken away by border control. The young white boy in the other car takes his black bag to the same school that belongs to the Patriots. The bag does not contain gym gear. It contains an assault rifle. Emphasis on the word, "assault". And after the running and the screaming. All we are left with is motionless bodies. Some look like they are merely sitting down. Others asleep at lunch. And then of it wasn't clear as day then the ones lying all around the school as still as the life they once had will move you to your core. And as John dressed in Church regalia and a crowd in protest piercing us with their pupils as they look to us through the fourth wall is met by another of police in riot control gear to their peaceful stand behind God, all the tears are replaced with gas. As this protest is taken apart by billy clubs and violence. And the image of John's clergyman being cuffed and put in the place of the same cop car is all we're left with. A somber and sobering note of "no justice, no peace" that we all wish in reality we could make sense of as the guilty go free and the innocent trying to make change remain in chains. Hate cures nothing. Love is the only way. And as this all comes to a head the angel wings of the fallen kid from another police shooting looks to what we all should in something higher. Sitting uptop the very same cop car. "All I hear is voices/Everybody's talking/Nothing real is happening, 'cause nothing is new/Now when all is tragic/And I just feel sedated/Why do I feel numb? Is that all I can do?" After all. We can't just preach. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

REVIEW: MAGGIE ROGERS-HEARD IT IN A PAST LIFE

5/5

Maggie's Farm

Grammy ready. You may say it's too February early to call it, but if the reinvention of an electric and eclectic Joni Mitchell on 'Heard It In A Past Life' isn't the album of the year already (it's the only thing this writer listens to right now after being Spotify shuffled to it randomly after listening to Leon Bridges' same sun soaked evoking latest. The one side I love to streaming). Then its author Maggie Rogers is for sure the best new artist of the 2019 she has January begun with the first big release of the year, like 'Captain Marvel' will do next week in the blockbuster movie world. And if she isn't then it's because 'don't call her a newcomer', she's been here for years. Working away at her art with her inspired indie albums, like 2012's 'The Echo' and the beautiful 'Blood Ballet' reply. And of course the influence of the illuminated 'Now That The Light Is Fading' epic EP two years back and it's definitive 'Dog Days' single that has shone on all of this 'Past Life'. But there's no dog days to be had anymore for Maggie. Rogers has already shown Pharrell 'Alaska' (a song about the National Outdoor Leadership School's homaged in the video. Wrote in just 15 minutes. But sometimes the best songs just pure and simple are) during a study session masterclass at New York University (one her 'Echo' album-recorded at home in a makeshift broom closet studio-got her. With an enrollment for the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music). And the Neptune's producer speechless like those who just keep repeating the word, "wow" was moved to what looked like tears for her as cool as cold snow in your palms track. Singing "you and I/There's air in-between" like serenity. His face to our fourth wall reaction said it all. It's no wonder he didn't sign her right there on the spot. Although you can hear his beat influence on the catchy, foot stepping single 'On + Off', that like it's video really explores the studio space (cowbell word to SNL that she has already love performance owned like the Blue Oyster Cult or her showstoppers on Ellen and Kimmel). But it's like he said to her in awe, amazed response, "I have no notes for that. Because you're doing your own thing." Instead she charted her own path through this social media powered industry "everyone's got a record, deal with it" wilderness. And wowed us all like the art of dance she brings to said songs visual. Like all her vivid videos or iconic album art. She told music N.E.R.D. Williams she has synesthesia, perceiving more than one sense at once. Which allows her to see music through colour. And not in the corny 'Empire' way of Terrence Howard's Lucious Lyon but in perfect symmetry intune of being in an in sync, synergy with sound. And oh how it shows.

Brixton baby to Lana Del Rey's Brooklyn one, it's no wonder this star singer from the other side of Maryland's Miles River in Easton (the true America) who has gone more than viral now has an academy of A-List artist friends in her corner today. Bringing out Great Brit, national Kate Bush treasure, Florence...yes that Florence from the Machine out for her London show. And the ecstatic crowd in witness of a legend were still in awe of a legacy making one to be. You can hear her influence and a whole spectrum of sound on this genre encompassing classic that crosses over like this digital age truly has for an artist who grew up on the neo-soul of Badu and Ms. Hill, between Vivaldi harp practice breaks...from age seven! Who never really respected dance music until she couldn't stop doing so in Belgium's house. Incorporating all that into her fresher than tomorrow sound that at times sounds like banjos and folk like Carole King and at others, the royal new school of the likes of Lorde. She references Stevie...the wonder that is Fleetwood Mac's Nicks with her "come out of the darkness" plea on the renaissance singers 'Retrogade', whilst singing through the perplexed pain, "Oh, here I am, settling at your house/Broken blinds keep the light comin' out/And I am just the shape I'm in/Oh, here I am, settling, crying out." But she probably moves to Motown too. Maggie Rogers cites the likes of Patti Smith and Björk as her inspirations and the mix of the two can be even seen in the soundscape of her aforementioned artistic videos. There's the sun kissed California looking empty backyard pool come skate park of 'Give A Little', with the chemistry camaraderie of all her friends that feels like a young loves American dream as she leads the chorus of the new America, millennial, National Anthem, "And if you give a little, get a little/Maybe we could get to know each other/Give a little, get a little, give a little/And if you give a little, get a little/Maybe we could learn to love each other/Give a little, get a little, give a little." Trust us soon you'll be singing it in unity unison together.

'Fallingwater' is this young 24 year old artist at her 7 days a week, 12 months a 365 working days year creative peak however. Perfect on the piano like the part title track and deepest cut of out of this realm introspection, 'Past Life', this yearning to learning ballad (like the "I've been sleeping/Barely dreaming/Through one year and one half/Found another/Called him my lover/Helped me get my old self back" of the ignited 'Burning') sees our singer in red dance in the desert until the sand of time healing turn into an emotional downpour of blue. As the break change to dancing in the joy offers the hand of the best music video your Vevo has seen in YouTube years. Forget the Instagram age. This is real iconography for the modern mainstreams music canvas. Yet again showing her perfect steps in time to the poetic art that is dance, in all its 'Blood Ballet' to modern day Gambino gambit moves. This is America's future. And like the Childish one...it's hope amongst all the hell. I used to say there were no young idols left in modern music to help carry that torch, but when I look at her and Donald Glover, oh how wrong I was. And then out of the darkness of 'Now That The Light Is Fading', the breakup to make-up, hurt to heart filled ode of leaving the 'Light On' is truly 'Give A Little' anthemic like enlightening. "Oh, I couldn't stop it/Tried to slow it all down/Crying in the bathroom/Had to figure it out/With everyone around me saying/"You must be so happy now"/Oh, if you keep reaching out/Then I'll keep coming back/And if you're gone for good/Then I'm okay with that/If you leave the light on/I will leave the light on" she muses between a music video that's a U.S. road trip of self discovery and a alive live one (and what a real voice live) from French revolutionary music outlet L'Blogotheque. The program that from Lianne La Havas walking the streets of Paris with her guitar, to Ben Harper and blues legend Charlie Musselwhite visiting a shop that puts those very strings together is redefining the art of regular studios music videos with their own productions, have come together with Rogers and her fans and friends on a solitary dark, to all inviting to sing-a-long light of a cosy Parisian bar in an outstanding one-take. Maybe their best of all the beautiful creative collaborations yet. Which just goes to show how contagious Rogers's exuberance and enthusiasm really is. And the warmth literal glow of this video and it's artist in all her honesty and beauty of strength over vulnerability is exactly what we need as she falls in the dark and is trust caught by a group in network support, for a time where we are all kept at a social media scrolling arms length from each other. And Maggie does more than give a little in her lyrics lamenting love in times of tweeted anxiety confusion, swiping...no scratching away for something real. "I remember way back, late night, throwback/Sitting on the front lawn talking/When I lost it, oh, I lost it/I remember you were saying you would come back, come back/Found me on the front porch like that/But you waited, so I got wasted" she sings on the outstanding by dark 'Overnight'. Before cutting into 'The Knife' of "insight torques its way in me/A bad collision without sympathy." But it's the closer 'Back In My Body' where her forlorn fading feelings of the one she loves are stripped bare for the perfect power cut as she fires up how she feels, "I was stopped in London, oh, I was awakening/I was/I was o'er in Paris when I almost ran away/Two times round the block before I decided to stay/Puffed along a cigarette that went and made me sick/Spent another day pretending I was over it." Putting down her thoughts like the last stub in the ashtray for the final flame of the hottest album of the first quarter. It's special to see in a Spotify age where beautifully you have access to almost all music, but brutally that leaves most artists craft cherry picked track by track, that we already have a complete, classic album already that we guarantee will play on constant repeat all calender. Reminding of us in the Trump time of the real America we feel in love with like a dream back in the sixties days of our Mamas and Papas. Maggie Rogers by our centuries version of that decade will be legendary like Jack Kerouac's muse Maggie Cassidy. This cohesive collection is the makings of a classic. Especially the singles and our personal standout, 'Say It', were creatively in her songwriting craft she makes "I cannot fall in love with you. I cannot feel this way so soon" sound like "how can I". The first track we were shuffled too that we've had on constant repeat like Natalie Prass' 'Lost' found from 'The Future and the Past' last year. And now this 'Past Life' is something to be heard, here, now. Despite everything it's been through the American dream is still alive in Rogers. If you thought no artist today could move you in such a way. Maggie may. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

On Repeat: 'Alaska', 'Say It', 'Light On'.

REVIEW: JOHN LEGEND-A LEGENDARY CHRISTMAS

4/5

Legend Of The Fall.

Tis the season to cuddle up by the chestnuts roasting on an open fire with the one you Chrissy Teigen this Christmas. As you wrap the last of your presents to put under the tree you decorated on that first night like a partridge in a pear one. Picture the scene whether you're in the festive spirit yet. Or still all Scrooged out on the ghosts of a past, last Christmas carol you gave your heart like the very next day (Rest Peacefully gorgeous George). It's almost like a hallmark card here in this household Legend. Like 'The Christmas Chronicle' of the new greatest Santa showman Kurt Russell and the perfect red cape and boot fitting Mrs. Claus, Goldie Hawn. But here 'A Legendary Christmas' and it's Bublé like televised special of love in the family home (and the reunion reprise of The Stephens Family all back together after all these 2004 years for the brandy warm classic, 'It Don't Have To Change') could even chill Netflix's 'Springsteen On Broadway' show live from New York City right now...yeah I said it Boss! No I'm not bitter because I couldn't make a ticket in Manhattan...honest. But this Christmas cake slice of New York, Rat Pack nostalgia with a sherry dash of Nat King Cole and so much more is the perfect Christmas offering like actress Zooey Deschanel's She & Him Christmas album, the one from R&B luminary Tank, his G.O.O.D. Music man Kanye West's 'Christmas In Harlem' collaboration, or even the 'A Murray Christmas' Netflix special reunion between Sofia Coppola and her 'Lost In Translation' cult legend, big in more than just Japan, Bill Murray. Produced by Lucy Pearl and Tony, Toni, Tone powerhouse Raphael Saadiq too (who really took it back to the good old Motown and rock and roll days with his 'The Way I See It' and 'Stone Rollin'' solo double act), so this is the Christmas of legends. After a terrible term of a couple of years where we lost Prince's, Kings of the world's like Ali and Ziggy's and in return just got a Trump. For at least tonight war is over...if you want it.

Good tidings dear John brings. So get your whole family round the piano before you leave the milk and cookies out for Santa. And don't forget the carrot for Rudolph. The king of R&B kings gives us a cracker as you're in for a yuletide treat with all the turkey and tinsel trimmings. Home for the holidays and live from the Legend living room, for the picture perfect family. Seriously have you seen how cute and exactly like them this couples kids are? Bestill our collective hearts. Coming out the 'Darkness and Light' of his last album, John Stephens' sixth signature is something special as he gets us lifted again like '04. 'Coming Home' like the emotion 'Once Again' of his tribute track to soldiers returning from the frontlines which even struck a chord with this writer when he was living in the cold of Canada a million miles away from the heart of home a decade ago (even that is absolutely nothing compared to those whose service we should pray thanks for now and New Year forever more). The 'All Of Me' singer give us all of him as he now has more than a stocking filler to put next to his classic, career high iconic track and every new married couples first dance since it's 2013 engagement. This album covering Christmas standards and his own new recorded traditions will play for December 25th's to come. But right now as everyone is tweeting Christmas Eve Eve like Phoebe from 'Friends' this is one for your scotch tape and gift tag playlist as you rip off the plastic seal like kids all that wrapping on Christmas morning and see that Santa hat wearing profile on white snow. Like the face you make when you're taking everyones Christmas money. But with good cheer. Here's to the man whose festive feeling, mood music should run like putting Santa's hat in with your whites. Because you best believe this will wash like all those dishes you might find easier to scrub come Boxing Day as you're still singing along into the scourer. The 'Evolver' legend really is evolving like that step away from the piano, Andre 3000 'Green Light' for go classic, game changer which might have even set this very album off back in the day, or his old soul 'Wake Up' collaboration with Jimmy Fallon show and rap band of legends The Roots planting more than a seed of Philadelphia soul. Forget 'Love In The Future'. This is life how it used to be and how we wish come true it still could be right about now.

Signed, sealed and delivered down your chimney like the big fella (no not Shaq! But you should see what that Claus brings kids in gifts each and every year) Legend even brings another to the party in the harmonica of Stevie Wonder as the new most wholesoman man in crossover old soul and pop music brings us a new wonder version of 'What Christmas Means To Me' (or more like him). And keeping it Detroit spinning in Motown with a good King Cole, Rat Pack like twist, John dusts off the legend of the ultimate one Marvin Gaye's 'Purple Snowflakes' left on Berry Gordy's cutting room floor for around 30 years as the First African American EGOT winner (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony people) reaches for a higher power with the God himself. He even goes into The Jackson's family home for 'Give Love On Christmas Day', before giving more soul power to the 'Please Come Home For Christmas' this lovesick writer was shamefully singing last Christmas, one made 90's famous with Jon Bon Jovi playing MTV video house with the supermodel of supermodels Cindy Crawford. But it's when he carries on timeless tradition for the likes of the ringing 'Silver Bells' or the Nat King roasting of chestnuts on 'The Christmas Song' that this record of 'Christmas Is Here' or 'Merry Christmas Baby' gets classic. But like the 'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas' duet with Esperanza Spalding and it's wholesome for the holidays Vevo video with beautiful imagery where Legend even makes ugly sweaters look stylish as GQ F, you haven't heard anything yet on a man who could make this music his new calling card everytime you're writing one come the advent of December. I just want to see him drive home for Christmas and cover 'Silent Night' aswell as Miley Cyrus did for her Murray Christmas. But like 'No Place Like Home' this 'Legendary Christmas' really comes into its own when Legend writes his own dedications with his velvet vocal range below the part in the card that says something saccharine about a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2019. You'll throw another log on the fire and let this family album snow from 'Bring Me Love' to 'Waiting For Christmas'. The inneudo bow laced (c'mon listen to any song about Mommy kissing Santa Claus and see that there is more than one hidden message here) 'Wrap Me Up In Your Love' might just be a new, modern day Christmas classic above the album. Whilst the Saadiq assisted 'Merry, Merry Christmas' is the perfect closer to play us out over the holidays behind the family piano. But speaking of top to toe in tailbacks and red lights all around it's the grand gesture of 'By Christmas Eve' and it's loving lyrics of, "Just hang up the Christmas lights, and I'll do the rest tonight/Just tell the kids I'm coming, I swear that I'll be running/And under the Christmas tree, together yet we will be I promise/I'm gonna walk, if I have to run/I'll stand on the highway and stop someone/I'll cross the deserts and oceans, a river that's frozen/I'll follow the stars just to find where you are/You can count on me/Make a wish, close your eyes, and believe/I'll be home, home, home, home, home by Christmas Eve" that really leaves a lasting impression come the night before, where not even mice of all critters are stirring. All is calm, all is bright. Drop the needle on the record as it scratches that spirits itch and raise your cup of egg nog and drink like the late, great Bernie Mac "before it goes bad". To you and yours happy holidays. A Merry Christmas and a legendary New Year. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Cracking Tracks: Just take your partner by the hand under the miseltoe and let it play.

REVIEW: SPRINGSTEEN ON BROADWAY

4/5

The Boss Of Broadway.

Trust me. The same guy who two years back spent the best part of an evening from 7pm in an online queue to book a ticket to get in another queue to line-up outside Waterstones in London to meet Bruce Springsteen and get a signed copy of his autobiography 'Born To Run'. Unable to move from my position or page no matter who called. Only to realize that the tickets went two minutes after seven and were already making the rounds on eBay (these things were free...no wonder they call you guys "scalpers") for hundreds and thousands, but no ice cream. And that I should have online sleeping bag got in the queue hours before not actually at seven (Homer Simpson). The same guy who a year before was in yet another queue underneath the Top Of The Rock in New York City for a chance to get tickets to see him on The Jimmy Fallon show for a Late Night with NBC in NYC. Only for the man in charge to count heads all the way to me and then put his arm out in front of my chest like the law of sods and declare, "no more tickets". Only for me to then wait on standby with a group of people talking to some guy and his girl for the best part of a fruitless hour, only for a woman to whisper politely in the squealing (to be fair I would too) girls ear, "I have one spare if you'd like". Really?! I mean should I take her guy for a slice? What are we supposed to do? Only (oh it gets better) to then, pizza in hand walk back to my hotel across from Madison Square Garden (shout-out to the John Hughes aesthetic of the perfect Hotel Pennsylvania) and see that Times Square was cornered off with construction tape, thinking, "sod this for a day in New York! I'll take a detour" (probably ironically via the road of the Walter Kerr Theatre). Only to get back to my 'Home Alone' decor room to switch on the news and see that U2 played a surprise, free gig featuring no other but who? Yep...Bruce Springsteen. So it would come as no surprise that this same Englishman would go all the way to New York to see 'Springsteen On Broadway' and without thinking (I seem to do a lot of that) pick the one time the Boss was taking a week off. But save your chortles. It wouldn't have mattered. As attempting to fly back for a night in N.Y. whilst chasing the King in L.A., the cheapest tickets after the lottery you know I would have lost to that girl were going for seven and a half thousand American (scalpers!). Seven and a half grand?! What is Bruce going to walk me to my seat?! Trust me to try the one week I wasn't remortgaging the house I don't even own. I can't complain though. Thanks to a lovely lady I got to see Springsteen tour the whole stream of 'The River' and even perform 'Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town' (Merry Christmas to you and yours) in the height of a rainy British Summer two years ago. Not to mention I had my own New York Bruce moment almost a decade gone when me and my boy broke the bank to watch Springsteen play with Jon Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld and Tony Bennett people. Actually on Broadway. A night that raised money for wounded soldiers. So those damn scalpers didn't get all our dollars. A vindication after my first Boss experience in London's Hyde Park was ruined by some guy who was singing along (ain't nothing wrong with that but I'm taking like the tonest of tone death pub singing) and doing the guitar bits (yep) on the loudest volume, right down my ear that he may as well have been kissing the lobe (so...what you doing later?! Fancy a pizza?). So I've had my perfect Springsteen in New York moment for a night we shouldn't have even been at. And when way back then Bruce auctioned his signed acoustic guitar off to the rich and famous elite in the crowd who was in the bleachers shouting 20 dollars? Trust me.

We all have our Springsteen story (you only have to ask an Uber driver trust me. It's beautiful) and that's my boring several. But no stories are greater than the ones the best Boss you've ever had (sorry Ryan) tells. And this is what 'Springsteen On Broadway' is all about. Don't worry Bruce isn't getting his acting on. He too as real as it gets for all that play pretend. Even though his cameo in 'High Fidelity' is award worthy. At this point the Oscars would and should probably do a category for all that. But you know the man whose already won one for the 'Streets Of Philadelphia' and fought for one with 'The Wrestler' is going to get a Tony like Danza in the dark for this. And now all of you with even worse luck than me can join me in buying the soundtrack and watching it on Netflix whilst I cry into my ice cream like Bridget Jones. Now who's the one singing along badly? But what else are you going to do alone this winter apart from wrap up in your warmest and snuggle up on the sofa with a duvet ("Ross we're 33. We're not women") when baby it's cold outside and it all gets Netflix and chilly? Hey it's not just writer that's got jokes. And trust me Bruce's are better thankfully. As the American songbook legend proves he's more than a songwriter and all singing storyteller as he stops between tunes and tunes up to crack a few punchlines to his prose. Like back a decade ago on that night with Tony, when the Tony award go getter described this high experience of love he had with a young lady in a park in his youth that felt akin to a fever dream. His stage fright performance with the wrong kind of substance, shall me say not as punctuated as this. "Ah baby. I'm so out of it I have no idea what I'm doing right now" the Boss confesses. To which his muse muses in replying, "I know! (like Monica's Courtney Cox from his iconic 'Dancing' video) you've been eating grass for the last half hour"! There's more gags of this reflective reflex here (even if everytime he mentions the man downstairs he also beats his right side of his chest to put emphasis on where love and making it really come from), which we won't spoil like your dinner if we get anymore down and dirty. Because this stage show and soundtrack accompaniment is something to be seen and heard for the first time like I only wish (*sniff*) I could have live in New York like Saturday night. But now we're all off Broadway on this theatrical (born to) run we can see why one man and a guitar sold out every night in the busiest, most famous city in the world for a full year (minus the week I went) and grossed over a billion dollars (Dr. Evil finger to the lips).

But this nuanced narrative is no joke as the worn blue jeans symbol of the boot-cut worked for American dream mines the depths of depression and secrets of family for a weary heart still hungry in the famine for substance today. This may not be the one, two, three, FOUR Springsteen stadium shouting ask of, "is anybody really alive out there". Although like his arena wrecking ball assaults he punches the clock in almost three hours of runtime. But this utterly intimate theatrical setting of a guitar, stool and workman's set is the closest thing you'll get to Bruce and the rock God he is save jumping over the fence of his ranch like this young man did to the King Elvis Presley, as he stormed the gates of Graceland like the Las Vegas Killers inspired by his heartland music in honoured homage. The portrait he paints with just six strings is poetry, pure and unflinching like the road he's lead in this life off E Street. This is a real Jersey boy staged on Broadway. Forget 'Big Boy's Don't Cry'. They raw reveal every evoking emotion. And the Boss himself talks about how he invented all that 'Jersey Shore' s### too as he gets lude, rude, crude and f###### funny. On a candid affair lifted from the pages of his inspired memoir 'Born To Run' as this theatrical runs showstopping Playbill. One that makes his previous classic VH1 Storytellers segment look like a pamphlet in spine to spine comparison. The rock legend rolls out all his legacy making classics. Like the aforementioned 'Born' or 'Dancing In The Dark'. The 'Tougher Than The Test'/'Brilliant Disguise', 'Tunnel Of Love' duo duet with perfect partner Patti (please let's reunite Julliard classmates and classic 'A Most Violent Year' co-stars Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain, the best actor and actress in the game today to play these two). Songs for his mum and dad with soul jerking and bone deep devotion. 'Thunder Road' for Clarence with an inspired interlude that haunts like the Big Man's sax ringing through a Freehold night. 'The Ghost Of Tom Joad' and all the spirits of the lessons of yesterday past that still try to 'Christmas Carol' warn us of the war coming and all we should pay heed to today for a better tomorrow. And of course the original, acoustic realization of what the patriotic 'Born In The U.S.A.' is really all about and what all that means to the wider world from our own picket fences, front lawns. Yes in this Trumped up age of unsocial media and an even less connected sense of humanity right now we need the Boss like the man who shouted that out his car when he drove past Bruce a few weeks after 9/11 (that lead Springsteen to come out of his almost decade drought and come back for the city on his back from the ashes with 'The Rising' (also brought back here) and the rest is second wind, real icon making symbolism and history) to put us to rights. But this night is more personal than political, like it is close quarter vigil, intimate than stadium arcadium. Less wave your cell phones in the air like you just don't care about anyone else's view (thankfully). More that reaching, if you will, human touch. As naked emotionally as the register his high notes really sing and hit on the out of 'Limbo' soundtrack 'Lift Me Up' (an underrated gem in his underrated for its versatility songbook). This is really about Bruce and us. As we travel together on this adventure like companions or roadside warriors as the song this writer wrote in devotion to his hero outside his family, 'Another Round For Me And The Boy From New Jersey'. Sure the songs are what has made him. Even if a refreshingly more relaxed and even swearing like a sailor, Bruce calls B.S. on his songs about working and driving. Since he never held a driving license back then and hasn't held down a Dolly Parton 9 'till 5, Monday 'till Friday 'till now. But it's all the talk between that makes this and makes the scoured the earth, sought after 'Springsteen On Broadway' so much more than just another live show and gig on his ever extended E Street run of a road trip. All of his heart and soul, personally personified on one backstreet stage just left of Times Square, but in his and our shared reality a million miles away from all that earth, electrical entertainment core neon glow. This is the big draw to the core of the Big Apple until the ball drops like Dick Clark on the last day of the calender. This is just the ticket. If only we could have got one. Well...now in your own home you have a front row seat. TIM DAVID HARVEY.