November 24, 2004

Killer or Filler?

Grandiosity takes many forms, including subtlety. (Now let that marinate.)
BY ANTHONY MARIANI

‘Ray’ of Hope

Pulling off soul is hard, ’cause if you close your eyes too hard while you’re emoting, you might turn into Ray Charles.

Soul’s nevertheless all the rage now. Ray LaMontagne, Robin Thicke, Justin Timberlake. All of these very white performers are appropriating the soulful-organic-boho thing now, in deference to the years of evolution that say only African-American men have soul!!!

It’s true. Yeah, I mean, we all have souls souls, but only the brothas have what’s commonly referred to as spiritual second-sight. Black women don’t have it. White men don’t have it. And white women don’t have it.

But melanin-impaired chick Beth Woods comes close. The native Fort Worth singer-songwriter, whose 2003 full-length You Take the Wheel landed in the Weekly offices recently, achieves some semblance of soul only because she doesn’t try too hard. She sings in a breathy, highly feminine voice that occasionally rises up from merely servicing the lyrics to “whoah-whoah-whoahhhhh!” The instrumentation is just her and her acoustic guitar, not a lot but enough to make a small ruckus. The songs are catchy, full, and sometimes even (yay!) melancholy (the uptempo “Deliciously” comes to mind). Think Patty Griffin, with a little less angst and a little more — how you say? — soul. Grade: B