Soul music has been resurrected.

The last time I heard a soul album that had interested me was probably Ray Charles's My World album or Stevie Wonder's A Time to Love. I had always been a fan of soul music, whether it'd be listening to my Pandora radio station of Billy Stewart (never heard? Listen right now) or listening to the soul records I had bought from garage sales for 25 cents a piece on my turntables. Especially with my generation of people, who listen to dull mainstream music that has been milked to the point which every song sounds the same but the artist is the only difference, it seems apparent that soul music is dead. I had this notion for a while, until I was presented with an missed opportunity like no other.


A friend had asked me if I was going to the Mayer Hawthorne and the Country concert about a week ago. I had heard the name and knew they were playing at a venue near by for cheap, but never knew who exactly this band was. I had thought it was some rock band that seemed unappealing due to their name (never judge a book by a cover, or never judge a band by it's name is something that should always be used before determining whether you like them or not). This week, I had heard about the concert from the same friend and I was appalled by the way they had described it, I quickly acted as if I knew what they were talking about closed my Facebook chat window, and switched to one of my favorite websites, Wikipedia.

I looked up Mayer Hawthorne, and quickly found myself looking at a rather stylish Caucasian man with a few people with guitars and other instruments backing him. My preconceived notion that he it was a rock band was true, until I had looked at the genre and saw: soul.

I read a description of him and was surprised, he was a cool looking guy out of one of my favorite cities of Ann Arbor, Michigan. I saw it and couldn't believe it, a soul artist out of Michigan who is making soul music in this day and age, I had to check out his music. I quickly went to another favorite website of mine: YouTube, and did a search of his name. I started listening to his song: How Do you Know. I loved it, and pretty much listened to about 10-15 of his songs. The thing that drew me in the most is that hes a 32 year old guy who had this soulful voice that I haven't heard in any music in the past decade or so.


I listened to his album Strange Arrangements, and bought the album on iTunes (I try not to buy my music digitally, so that was a big enough deal already). Mayer Hawthorne and the Country, blew me away. I love soul music, it's just something that always really seemed interest me, and when I found Mayer Hawthorne I was excited. He has a new album being released in two days, hopefully I can post a review of the album.


Overall, if you're a fan of soul or want to get into a modern version of soul (which sounds much like older soul) I'd recommend listening to Mayer Hawthorne. There is an overall lesson in this post and I guess it's definitely the "Don't judge a book by it's cover" because you might just end up loving it. Mayer Hawthorne gives me hope for a dying genre music, and I thank you for that.