Jamie Lidell

Now, I’ve nothing against white people. Indeed, some of my best friends are white, but it’s a generally accepted fact that white soul singers tend to be of the ‘shit’ variety (see Joss Stone, Mick Hucknall, Jay Kay).

Lanky, pasty, bespectacled Cambridgeshire gentleman Jamie Lidell, however, is rather excellent (fitting neatly into the ‘good‘ variety of white soul singers), with a raw, smooth voice which, in my opinion, is as powerful as any of the great soul singers of the past. While tracks like the opener ‘Another Day’ could be straight off an old Tamla Motown record, the Jamie Lidell we all know and love is the experimental guy who mixes it up (see previous album ‘Multiply’).

‘Figured Me Out’ is, dare I say it, a bit like Jamiroquai, (but not shit) with its fuzzy funky bass and ‘All I Wanna Do’ takes things back down with bluesy acoustic guitar.

I’m not a fan of soul or R&B music (hence the gross and sweeping generalisations on white soul singers) and ‘Jim’ is probably not the album to unite soul and pop fans, but a good song is a good song and the album has them, with sweet vocals sung by a true artist thrown in for good measure.