Nick Pride & The Pimptones – Go Deep (CD)

Description

The British Jazz-Soul Invasion Starts Right Here!

I’ve said before that I discovered Nick Pride and the Pimptones by accident on an American website; only to find that on a sunny day I can walk to to Nick Pride’s house!
Hey ho…..that’s only important because it goes to show how truly International his take on music is.
While the Pimptones are prodigious releasers of music; I make this their fourth full release and in my humble opinion; is their most cohesive to date; possibly because of the inclusion of the delectable Beth Macari as ‘the singer.’
Go Deep opens with the smouldering What The Heart Wants; and the marker is well and truly thrown down, with Beth sounding uncannily like the singer people think Amy Winehouse may have become on a tune that will have the cool kids grabbing onto their girls as they shimmy left right and centre in their shiny loafers.
It’s always been difficult to ‘pigeon hole’ the Pimptones as they straddle Jazz, Soul, Funk with gracious ease and on Give It To Me they even add a hefty dose of Rhythm to the Blues.
Sometimes with music like this it’s easy to forget that there is a song hiding inside; but I beg you to listen to Baby Can We Start Again? And tell me that you didn’t think it’s a classic Atlantic track or maybe from label dejour Daptone. This is a Soul song worthy of Aretha in her heyday.
Ooooghhh….there are a couple of storming songs here over and above what I’ve already mentioned; Put Your Arms Around Me is as Funky as it is Sexy; with Chicago tinged Jazz montage tucked away in the middle. Then we have the Midnight Jazz of Good Day; well I say Midnight Jazz as that’s what springs to mind; but the overall feeling is a song extolling the virtues of love on a sunny day. Confused? You won’t be.
Now it’s time for ‘pick of the litter’; obviously the single Gotta Leave The Lady Alone; with it’s exhilarating guitar and bass combo; but I’m going have to plump for……..Nothin’ But The Good Times which closes Go Deep and showcases everything that is wonderful about Nick Pride & The Pimptones ‘sound’ and will be an absolute showstopper when played live.
I know Beth Macari has her own career in the ascendancy at the moment; but she sounds so comfortable here that it could be a marriage made in Geordie Heaven rather than a marriage of convenience that I worry about.

The Rocking Magpie