Possessing a warm baritone voice that brilliantly contrasts with his brutally honest poetry, comparisons to Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash are apt, but the directness of his songs packs a brutal, devastating punch. It’s sadly fitting that such harrowing news coincided with Light in the Attic’s remarkable collection of songs by Willie Dunn, but as the year unfolded, the anger, sadness, and prescience of the Mi’kmaq singer, songwriter, and activist was a much-needed wake-up call. The more undocumented bodies that were found – far more than was estimated years ago – and the more it was revealed how much the Catholic Church tried to avoid compensating victims’ families, the more Canadians realized how deep the hurt, the intergenerational trauma runs among the Indigenous, Inuit, and Metis to this day. The sins of Canada’s colonial past came back to shake the nation to its core in the summer of 2021 with the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at former Indian Residential School sites across the country. Willie Dunn – Creation Never Sleeps, Creation Never Dies: The Willie Dunn Anthology Now expanded by an additional 16 tracks, it’s been re-molded as an epic that sounds every bit as vital and necessary as it did in 2003. This album already offered plenty to sink your teeth into in its original form. On song after song, he delivers lines like “When I become a ‘n****r’, I’ll let you know” and “Who are we to give up on anyone?” over opulent arrangements that take your breath away as the music swoops through soul-stirring chord changes. Right off the top of the album, Donnie exhorts listeners to remember how foundational black culture has been to the American enterprise. In retrospect, it’s no surprise that he was able to find the sweet spot between a direct, uncompromising message and commercial appeal. Make no mistake: Donnie’s verve as a performer puts him in a class entirely by himself. Atlanta-based R&B vocalist Donnie‘s 2003 album The Colored Section represents the apotheosis of the “neo-soul” sound, updating the epic sprawl, melodic majesty, and social conscience of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On for a whole new generation of listeners. Over the decades, R&B as we had once known it has undergone a radical revitalization thanks to an infusion of ever-advancing hip hop production techniques that eventually became synonymous with the form. – Sean McCarthyĭonnie – The Colored Section: Deluxe Edition
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Broken down, stretched out, reimagined, and given a fresh perspective thanks to some of the most revolutionary figures in jazz, condensed into one magical night, A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle is a miracle of a discovery. The performance, which featured one of the first with Pharoah Sanders, came as Coltrane was already deep into his next reinvention with the expansive album Ascension. In 2021, it would be easy to assume that most jazz fans with a respectable music collection would say, “I have no need for another rerelease of A Love Supreme.” A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle proved most of these fans wrong as Impulse Records unveiled one of the only recorded live performances of John Coltrane‘s masterpiece.įor decades, the concert - recorded on a sparse two microphone set-up in the Penthouse club, and captured on five seven-inch reels of quarter-inch tape thanks to saxophonist Joe Brazil, who died in 2008 - was well-maintained but sat essentially untouched. John Coltrane – A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle