If you were an avid collector of house 12″ singles around 1999/2000 than there are chances that you have the 12″es Fool For Love, Last Dance and Holiday on Basement Boys Records. On these three records you can hear a certain Russell who also co-wrote the tracks. This Russell is no other than Russell Taylor who has come up with a strong and soulful full-length album called Soulstar Vol. II.
Like most of his peers Russell cites the usual suspect like Roberta Flack, Bobby Womack, Aretha Franklin, Lou Rawls, Ray Charles, Wes Montgomery or Donny Hathaway as influences.
With many record labels hoping to cash in on the success of neo soul and takening urban/R&B singers and having them state these artists as favorite artists, we’ve read this list of artists often enough in recent times. But - as you will soon notice from listening to Russell’s music - Russell is really an original artist deeply rooted in the soul music genre, he simply lives this kind of music and besides he has no big label pushing him. In fact, the copy I’ve got is a CD-R of Soulstar Vol. II unfortunately with no further information about composers, musicians involved et cetera. I’m not even sure if this album is actually available because Russell’s website doesn’t tell you where or how to purchase his music. I hope he’ll change that soon because he has an impressive album to offer.
Fans of Eric Benet, Maxwell, Frank McComb and Rahsaan Patterson surely will love Russell’s music at once, there are some similarities but overall Russell has his own style and his singing is always heartfelt.
It’s really hard to pick a favourite with so many good tunes like Go Away, a soulful midtempo tune full of raw energy. Or take How Deep, a touching ballad done in great Stevie/Donny style. Other highlights include the Southern Soul influenced All Said, which evokes memories of old Al Green songs or the catchy acoustic guitar ridden Kiss, that could easily become a radio hit for Russell. The only thing that maybe could be improved would be a more organic instrumentation on some songs with real musicians to give the songs are warmer and more vivid feeling. For example All Said suffers a little from the use of a drum machine.
Nevertheless, this is an overall awesome soul album which makes Russell Taylor an artist to reckon with.
[Edit: the album will be released in January 2006 with about half of the songs recorded with a live band…so be prepared for something big in early 2006!]

Tracklisting of Soulstar Vol. II: 1. Go Away/ 2. I Love You/ 3. How Deep/ 4. Lady/ 5. Somewhere/ 6. Kiss/ 7. Fly/ 8. Sex Talk/ 9. All Said/ 10. For Tiny/ 11. Gotta Run | released 2004 by Russell Taylor

For more infos visit russelltaylor.net.

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