NEW MUSIC:Anyone for some retro soul throwbacks? Say hello to Mayer Hawthorne, a dude with a skyscraping soul falsetto, the hots for prime-time Smokey Robinson and the Four Tops and the ability to sling both together into the coolest, sweetest sounds on the block.
If his Stones Throw debut jam Just Ain't Gonna Work Outis any indication, Hawthorne's shimmering soul is going to light up a lot of places in the months to come. This is a tune which sounds as if it was minted in 1960s Detroit, not 21st-century Los Angeles.
Until Stones Throw boss Peanut Butter Wolf went mad for his doo-wop demo, Michigan native Andrew Cohen was paying the bills as DJ Haircut in clubs and at college jams around home. There was never a plan to do a doo-wop record, but a demo apparently made as a joke changed all that.
When he heard the two-song demo, Wolf thought he was hearing Cohen’s takes on old songs and couldn’t believe these were brand-new tunes. A deal was done in less time that it took Cohen to find a snazzy waistcoat to wear.
Next on the schedule is a full-length album, A Strange Arrangement,due later this year and which you can now sample at stonesthrow.com.
- www.myspace.com/ mayerhawthorne
