Are you a fan of soul, jazz, funk, garage, psychedelica or straight-up rock’n’roll? Then boy have we got something pretty damn special for you. Introducing Curtis Harding, one of the most exciting artists emanating from the US right now.
Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, this incredibly talented young man was one of the most spoken about rising musicians of the US in 2014 after releasing his debut record, the melting pot of garage infused funk and soul, Soul Power.
The album only just dropped in Australia as of 30th January, and to celebrate the official arrival of Harding’s earthy release we had a chat with the ‘Keep On Shining’ singer as he detailed his musical roots, his astonishing brushes with greatness (spoiler: he models for Yves Saint Laurent) and most importantly, his debut record, Soul Power.
Despite now calling the south-east coast of the US home, Harding has laid his head in many parts of the US, “I was born in Saginow, Michigan. We moved around a lot, and I mean a lot, I’ve lived in the west coast of California, to all the way on the east coast, and from southern tips to all the way up in the Midwest to Michigan.”
Music has been Harding’s sole passion for as long as his memory serves, and it is the shared lifeblood of his entire family, having sung with his father, mother, sister and church since he was youngster. Like many, Harding’s first instrument was his voice, “singing has always been a huge, my uncle Sean sung with Isaac Hayes when he was younger, it’s always been a huge part of what we do as a family in music, it’s great.”
But that’s not all, Harding a multi-instrumentalist, too.
“I play drums, I didn’t pick up the guitar well I guess it’s been about 10 years now, I guess it wasn’t really serious until the last three or four years so I’m a late bloomer in that sense” he explained. “I don’t play piano, I’d be lying if I said I did, I tinker around with it, I think I have about three or four songs in my repertoire” he said, laughing.
No stranger to the recording process, the Atlantan experimented with taping his own sounds from a young age, “we’ve been recording music ever since I was a kid, since I was like nine years old, we’d get a karaoke machine and do tape recordings, basically we would make our own songs singing.”
Continuing, he recounted “I didn’t start professionally until 2001 – 2002 when I started working with Cee-Lo and singing backup and doing stuff like that.” Yep, the Cee-Lo Green.
Harding worked as a promoter for Atlanta label Laface, which miraculously saw him being invited into the studio with Cee-Lo himself, “he was working on songs for his first solo record and a session broke out, everyone was rapping and singing and Cee-Lo liked what we did and invited us to his other studio where he was actually recording the songs and I got my first placement ‘round 2001 – 02, and the rest is history, I would have been about 21-22.”
Like our very own Sia Furler, Harding has worked fastidiously behind closed doors, writing songs for other noted musicians including his own bands The Constellations and Black Sun as well as The Black Lips.
“I’m always constantly writing songs and writing songs with people, that’s actually all I ever wanted to do, was just write songs for other people, I had no intention of putting my own body of work out” he confessed.
“I enjoy collaborations, obviously” he continued, “I believe that two hands are better than one especially when you can have the same mind but you come from a different background, I think that’s one of the best collaborations.”
“I had no intention of putting my own body of work out”And his dream collaboration? “Oh man if he was still making music although he’s kind of a recluse I would say Sly Stone right now, because I just love what he does, that would be amazing.”
Harding’s previous works with the likes of Night Sun earned him a place on the ever-cool Californian indie label, Burger Records, a renown group that have a boastful artist roster that pertains to the worlds of garage, low-fi, psychedelic and indie rock, which eventually lead to the label signing Harding for his solo release.
Soul Power is exactly as the name suggests, a strong 40-minute release, and believe it or not, was named by none other than Hedi Slimane, the creative director for high-end fashion label Yves Saint Laurent, insane, right?
“It’s funny, ‘Soul Power‘ is the name of a song that’s not on the album. Hedi Slimane shot the pictures for the album cover, he came to one of my shows and he heard that song [‘Soul Power’] and the mock-up photos for the album cover had the writing ‘Soul Power’ under it, I guess he was trying to give an example of how it would look and I was like ‘well, I guess that’s the name of the album because it looks great!’” he causally explained.
In forming a relationship with such a prestigious artist like Slimane, it was only a matter of time before Harding modelled for the iconic photographer and designer, which saw him feature in Yves Saint Laurent’s acclaimed Music Project series alongside the likes of Joni Mitchell, Marilyn Manson, Courtney Love and Kim Gordon.
Akin to the record’s title, Harding‘s lyrics are bold, up front and powerful, discussing one of his personal favourites ‘Heaven’s On The Other Side’, he detailed the catalyst of the track, “Heaven’s On The Other Side’ isn’t literally about going to heaven, it’s just a way to send out a subliminal message in a sense, to put meaning elsewhere, to make it sound more beautiful, like I said it’s not literally about crossing over to the other side it’s about taking a journey elsewhere that is more pleasant than where you are.”
Harding’s raw soulful vocals are no doubt Soul Power’s strongest point, his registry sitting between legends Al Green and Sly Stone, however the record would not be complete without the flawless meld of genre-splitting sound that explodes from the album.
Drawing on a range of influential artists, Soul Power sonically takes from obvious inspirations like funk king Sly Stone, the ’70s dancing vibes of Nile Rogers, and even the kaleidoscopic Californian psychedelica of The Doors.
However this isn’t just another musician attempting to emulate the past. Harding melts these elements into a modern sound, adding his own blend of low-fi, garage and desert rock to create both a genre and era wildfire that burns at great fervour for a full 40-minutes.
The importance of instrumentation was paramount for Soul Power, “I really just wanted to make everything sound organic man, and live, I wanted to use live instrumentation, if I was going to record everything analogue everything should be live, tracked live, I wanted it to sound proper and I wanted to be recorded in a proper studio, and that was it.”
Curtis Harding is about to embark on a tour that will see him land his feet in both the UK and Europe, when posed with the question of whether we’d be hearing his garage-soul fusion on Aussie soil any time this year, he seemed very positive, “yeah well we’re talking about it, I’ve just got to finish up some obligations I have right now but then I’ll be coming your way, ‘Down Under’ man.
Soul Power is out now via Warner/ Burger Records.
