By Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan | with thanks to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Friday, November
14, 2014.
“Jesus picked up the pieces | of my broken heart | He
made me a new vessel | he revived my soul again” -- “The Broken Vessel” | “The Potter”
For Dave Hollister, the devil at the crossroads was
neither myth nor function; the demons were real when Hollister, the former lead
singer of Blackstreet and one-time heir to the Chi-Town Soul Throne stepped
away from the music that made him a star. He found the Lord; a well worn story
for those who dared sing at the altars of flesh and ego with voices ordained by
Gods we still don’t really know.
And like Rev. Green and Rev. Simon (who was “Drowning in a Sea of Love”) before him, the rhythms and
melodies stayed the same – Warren “Baby Dubb” Campbell provided Hollister with
a few them on his Gospel debut The Book of David, Vol. 1: The Transition
(2006). Healed—spiritually and physically—Hollister returns to the world
with Chicago Winds...The Saga Continues, his first secular recording in
a decade.
Chicago Winds… feels like a true reboot—not
only moving past Hollister’s two Gospel recordings (and a stint in the Fred
Hammond led super group United Tenors) but also Things in the Game
Done Changed (2002) and Real Talk (2003). If Hollister’s Chicago
‘85: The Movie found him at his artistic peak—he intended the album
to be part of a trilogy—Chicago Winds… is a worthy sequel, perhaps
reminding folk that Hollister might just be the most talented Soul Man vocalist
to emerge from The Chi in the last generation.
For those who can remember the sinister groove that
opens Hollister’s “Baby Mama Drama,” the singer was perfectly suited for
boom-bap audiences who liked their R&B singers on the thuggish-side. Like
Hollister himself asserted: “back on Blackstreet shit was sweet, so now I’m
so-lo(w).” Where Robert Sylvester’s musical persona was more brown sugar than
brown liquor and Raheem DeVaughn and Jaheim a little too pretty to be taken
seriously as corner boys--and them Hailey boys off-pitch and
out-of-control--Hollister gave the clearest indication of how Donny
Hathaway or any of the Soul Man titans might have flowed had they competed
sonically with the boom-bap.
And it was not simply about Hollister’s sartorial
choices (check the cover his solo debut Ghetto Hymns); few of Hollister’s peers
have been as attuned to the nuances of string and background vocal
arrangements, save Robert Sylvester, Eric Benet and Ms. Ndgeocello. It is
attention to those details that mark Chicago Winds... as a classic Dave
Hollister recording, starting with the opening track “Spend the Night” which
harkens to Hollister’s lead on Blackstreet’s “Before I Let You Go.” (and to bring it full
circle, Chicago Winds… features a remix of “Spend the Night” from Teddy Riley)
If there is a theme throughout Chicago Winds…,
implicit in Hollister’s return, is that these are the musings of a grown man
seeking redemption and perhaps forgiveness. To be sure, whatever
Hollister’s sins, they were overshadowed by that other well-known Chicago Soul
son, yet Hollister’s music gets at the sacrifices and missed opportunities that
only a lived adulthood can measure. Listening to the title track “Chicago
Winds,” where Hollister owns his absenteeism as a father—and perhaps as
an artist—one finds a man both at peace with his mistakes and confronting the
limits of who he is, even with the second sight of age and maturity.
Chicago Winds… might be
safe—in the way that the programmers for Tom Joyner and D.L. Hughley might find
safe (and in contrast to compelling crossroads narratives from August
Alsina)—but it is also honest—both to Hollister’s art and the traditions that
have produced him.