Over the last few months everyone’s favourite Aussie soul man, LANCE FERGUSON has been teasing us with singles from his upcoming album – a second volume of what he calls his RARE GROOVE SPECTRUM. The idea of the “spectrum” is to dig out ultra-rare and/or classic soul, jazz and funk tunes and re-record them with a 21st century Aussie twist. As hors d’oeuvres for Volume 2 we’ve already had Lance’s take on Kool and the Gang’s ‘Summer Madness’ and covers of Dave Lee’s Sunburst Band’s ‘Far Beyond’ and the rare Latin groove – Kitty Winter & Gipsy Nova’s jazz-dance classic ‘New Morning’.
Now the full album is good to go and those three tunes sit strongly midst half a dozen others – which include a few surprises. None bigger than a take on Carly Simon’s ‘Why’ – hardly “an ultra-rare and/or classic soul, jazz and funk tune” but Lance and his team deliver sweetly – a sort of Herb Alpert flavour… almost MOR with some added spice! Ditto the cover of Mongo Santamaria’s ‘Hot Dog’ which comes over like a 70s TV US police show theme ! Amongst the other tunes on offer are Pat Metheny’s ‘Sueno Con Mexico’ and Marcos Valle’s ‘Estrellar’ adding obvious Latin flavours to proceedings.
LANCE FERGUSON: RARE GROOVE SPECTRUM 2 out now via Freestyle Records.
