Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
We mentally note down the moment we meet some people, other’s might leave their first impressions in a piece of writing, a diary entry, a phone number scrawled on a paper handkerchief that was left in the hope of a connection, some might warrant being preserved in a novel; for good, or for ill, the moment we first meet another human soul is the memory it is built upon.
There are those who nestle in the mind but then there are the fortune ones who reside in the soul, the nurse who mops the brow from the fever of the day, the Soul Doctor who takes their practise from the Gulf Coast and without the hinderance of borders, spreads good feeling and the sound of sax wherever there is the need for such medicine to be heard.
Newly installed on Mike Zito’s and Guy Hale’s Gulf Coast Records, Jimmy Carpenter brings his own Soul Doctor to the forefront of music lover’s attention, and with musicians such as Cameron Tyler, Jason Langley, Trevor Johnson, Chris Tofield, Red Young, Carrie Stowers and Queen Aries all being integrated into the specialist’s prescription, and with special guest Nick Schnebelen, Doug Woolverton, Mark Earley, Al Ek and the aforementioned Mike Zito all adding that extra space across various songs, there is nothing more positive to aid the listener’s appreciation and which makes the medicine go down with ease.
The album, which consists of seven original arrangements and three essential covers, sees this fourth album by the Blues artist flying high with confidence and bustling, unstoppable energy. Across songs such as When I Met You, Love It So Much, a superb rendition of Little Willie John’s Need Your Love So Bad, Wrong Turn and Yeah Man, the greatness of the man and his own journey of 35 years have come full circle, the spark of ingenuity has fanned the flames of positive identity, and as encouragement is sought by those who require attention, so too does the passion of the Doctor make itself known; each song bursting at the seams with contrast and equality.
An album of clinical precision, nothing less than in wonderful physical shape, the Soul Doctor is in, and he will entertain you now.
Ian D. Hall