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Lari White - Green Eyed
Soul (Skinny White Girl)
Released (US) - August, 2005
I spent more than a little time growing up around Motown. I do not claim
to be the big authority on the genre.
But like the supreme court justice who said he knew pornography when he
saw it - I do know what makes me turn the volume waaaay up.
Aretha Franklin has it. The Supremes had it. Martha Reeves had it. Lisa
Stansfield has it.
Joss Stone (Despite Betty Wright's help) does not.
Lari White is the real deal. Oh, yes. This is the real thing. Her
biography reads like...well, like you can't make this stuff up. Gospel
roots in Florida, graduates from Miami U a music major, scores on a
Nashville Network TV Talent show - and has some fair-to-middling success
on the country charts.
Until 1999 or so. Fade to black. And that might have been the end for
many.
As the story goes, she built her own recording studio at her Nashville
home, and a year ago, a new disc turns up in the UK - on a small label.
It's now available in the US - self-published on "Skinny White Girl"
Records.
It's all here - the country, the gospel, and soul by the bushel basket.
Why no major label has paid attention to Ms. White is...well, it's
criminal.
If you do nothing else - spend the 99 cents on "We've Got It Going On."
It's cheap at five times the price.
Hell, download the whole album. There's not a clinker in the bunch.
And turn the volume up. Way up.
  Three
and one-half microphones (out of four)
- Doug Boynton
(09/11/05) |
