You probably don’t need me to tell you that sometimes the British soul scene is crazy! So-called British soul fans/collectors often ignore/neglect some great proper soul simply because it doesn’t fit their narrow ideas of what the sound should be. We know too that said fans/collectors are hugely conservative. For starters they won’t tolerate rap, hip hop or anything tainted with the R&B label. Now we learn that many don’t like “guitar solos” (so what do they make of, say, the Isleys’ ‘Summer Breeze’ or ‘That Lady’?) and we bring this up right now because of a debate about a gorgeous new “proper” soul single from Jamaican singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional bassist, J-SUMMA (Gawaine Campbell)
We know that Mr Summa has been making music from a tender age and cites his heroes as people like Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Bobby Womack, Curtis Mayfield, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff and Nina Simone and you can hear many of those influences all over his latest single, ‘Heaven And Home’ – which is the cause of the aforementioned “debate”.
‘Heaven And Home’ is a proper old school, soul tune with Mr Summa switching from fragile falsetto to gruff baritone with ease. He says: “’Heaven and Home’ is the unique, delicate yet beautiful balance between yourself and your loved one. It’s easy to have a house but not a home. It’s easy to be with someone but not have peace of mind. This song represents true love and companionship – this person is your heaven and your home. I hope this song can connect with the hearts and souls of listeners worldwide.”
The emotion-tugging ‘Heaven And Home’ certainly has connected. It’s winning plenty of radio plays and climbing the UK soul chart – but here’s the thing. Some of our soul friends don’t quite get it because it features a guitar solo! The guitar? Well, not surprising, of course, J-Summa is a guitarist as well as singer (did somebody mention Bobby Womack!). So for the conservative Brit contingent someone has edited out the guitar solo to make it, they say, more “soul friendly”! Don’t think so. It destroys the integrity of the original which is totally soulful. Don’t even know if J-Summa knows about the tampering. We’ll wait and see. In the meantime the original ‘Heaven And Home’ is good to go now via your usual portals and it comes highly recommended. Don’t know where you can find the doctored edit though!
