Lee Genesis at Johnny D's, January 9, 2008
By JON GARELICK | January 15, 2008
![GenesisPressPhoto1[1]INSIDE](http://cache.thephoenix.com/secure/uploadedImages/The_Phoenix/Music/Live_Review/GenesisPressPhoto1[1]INSIDE.jpg "GenesisPressPhoto1[1]INSIDE")
Lee Genesis |
Even among the greatest soul singers, there are probably few who can work a sermon about the evils of the sub-prime-mortgage fiasco into a song and make it hip. But Lee Genesis did it in the first of his two sets at Johnny D’s a week ago Wednesday. He had sung a couple of verses of his original “Reachout,” with his excellent band and two back-up vocalists cooking behind him, when he got to the part of the song where soul singers traditionally take it down and talk to the people. With spare keyboard accompaniment, he flowed through the state of the election year, the mortgage mess, and the need for something different (“I don’t care who it is, just bring the difference!”), and without dropping a beat he came out into the song’s lyrics about the need for people’s voices to be heard: “Here we are!”
Genesis came through Boston like a comet more than three decades ago — landing at the Wilbur Theatre with the touring company of Godspell in 1972 and sticking around through the Blizzard of ’78 before heading back to New York. In the meantime, he was everywhere: with his soul band Heat, with the jazz-funk group Ghetto Mysticism, showing up at clubs all over town to sit in with the night’s band and bring down the house with his electrifying gospel falsetto.
The years have taken a little bit of the power off that falsetto (he’s worked in and out of music since his Boston days), but he still commands the stage like a man imbued with the spirit. Handsome and trim at 65, with the shiny bald pate he had 30 years go, he kicked, danced, and joked, and he pushed the falsetto for all it was worth at the climax of his songs of uplift. The line-up included two musicians from Heat, guitarist Dave Acker (now in New York) and bassist Tim Ingles (the George Porter Jr. of Boston), plus keyboardist Frank Wilkins, drummer Jim Arnold, and tenor-sax Chuck Langford. Along with his own pieces from his new The Soul of Lee Genesis (Burger Platters), Genesis sang Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” and Al Green’s “Love and Happiness.” For a night, Johnny D’s was a soul church.
Related:
Taking care of business, Lotta-palooza, He's the Boss, More 
- Taking care of business
Boston is one of the healthiest markets for live roots music in the country. Here are the 10 roots shows we don't want to miss this fall.
- Lotta-palooza
This article originally appeared in the August 14, 1992 issue of the Boston Phoenix .
- He's the Boss
If good rock and roll is about escape, great rock and roll is about taking ordinary life and making something extraordinary out of it.
- A Kind of homecoming
The scene: four chairs, four acoustic guitars, four semi-famous, sensitive singer-songwriters on a small stage in a room with a few dozen chairs.
- Arcade Fire is overrated
Now that the Best of 2006 lists are all finished and everyone has stopped arguing over whether TV on the Radio are overrated, we can get back to discussing whether the Arcade Fire are overrated?
- Anarchy in Medford
Sitting in on Tufts lecturer Michael T. Fournier’s course “History of Punk Rock,” offered via the university’s Experimental College, one can’t help but think of Johnny Rotten’s famous final words: “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
- Pop Master
As last night’s show at T.T. the Bear’s Place proved, Keene is still a masterful songwriter, singer, and guitarist in love with his craft after 22 years in the trenches.
- Boston music news: May 26, 2006
The SNOWLEOPARDS , featuring local singer-songwriter HEIDI SAPERSTEIN , celebrate the release of their new single “Stuck in the Middle” this Friday, May 26, at Sally O’Brien’s in Union Square (next to P.A.’s Lounge), opening for local singer-songwriter EMILY GROGAN .
- Gibby goes techno
Many Bostonians remember the name Gibby Miller.
- Review: The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker | Burn It Down
These Nashville-based high ministers of retro-groove — known for their muscular live sermons — broaden their gospel on CD #2.
- Review: Howling Bells | Radio Wars
Australian dream-rock dudes (and dudette) toured North America earlier this year with Coldplay — and like Chris Martin's not-so-merry men, Howling Bells on their sophomore album attempt to dress up what might otherwise be a clutch of dour, namby-pamby white-person ditties with all manner of spicy studio-side textures.
- Less
Topics:
Live Reviews
, Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, More
, Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, Religion, Steve Winwood, Soul Music, Al Green, George Porter, johnny d's, Less
