In 1967 the great soul/blues singer Johnnie Taylor went into the Stax Studios on 920 McLemore Avenue in Memphis and made a seminal album, entitled Wanted: One Soul Singer. The record had a photo on the album cover depicting Taylor sitting on a park bench holding the “want ads” from the paper.

It is as if cosmic forces had those same “want ads” flying through the decades and landing in a newspaper in San Jose, California, where it ends up in the hands of Kid Andersen. It is Andersen who produced, recorded, mixed and mastered a truly great album which harkens back to those halcyon days when soul and blues merged and found an audience. Found! One Soul Singer by Sonny Green is a revelation.

This release by the Little Village Foundation is why the label exists in the first place. Found! One Soul Singer brings to our attention this criminally underappreciated talent. 

Green, a Louisiana native and long-time Los Angeles resident went up the road to Kid Andersen’s Greaseland Studios and made an album that played to his strengths, which are considerable. As producer Andersen put the right songs and the right musicians in place and made an album that sounds like a recording from the late 60’s and early 70’s. The usual Greaseland collective of first call musicians is in place and makes marvelous contributions, they include Jim Pugh on the Hammond B3 organ, Chris Burns on clavinet and piano, as well as Andersen on guitar.

Like any great soul/blues album, the horns play a big role in capturing the overall mood and feel of the songs that are presented. Aaron Lington handles the tenor and baritone sax duties. The brass section includes trombone star Mike Rinta and trumpet player Jeff Lewis. It is Rinta who wrote all of the horn charts for this recording.

Tenor sax giants Terry Hanck and Sax Gordon Beadle both make cameo appearances, as does rising singing star Alabama Mike whose duet with Green on an original tune is one of many album highlights.

This is the very first album by this veteran performer and it comes at listeners like a late 60’s American muscle car. The 77-year-old vocalist sounds like a 20-year-old on the come, bristling with energy and a high-octane delivery. Green takes on songs sung by giants like Bobby Bland and Little Milton for instance and steps on the gas. It is with supreme confidence that Green takes these tunes out for a spin around the block. This dizzying joy ride will leave you breathless.

- David Mac



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