Lee Fields spent most of the '90s on the Ace label, recording soul-blues albums whose funkiness was often dampened by cheap-sounding, partly synthesized backing tracks. Judging by his performance on his Desco Records debut full-length Let's Get a Groove On, Fields' move to the pioneering old-school funk-revival label freed him to do the kind of gritty, authentic funk album he'd been itching to record for quite some time. Laying out his principle of "rough...nasty...genuine" funk in a spoken intro, Fields positively smokes through the whole record, capturing all the fire of late-'60s James Brown (whom he strongly and unashamedly resembles, vocally) with the help of the Desco house band, the Soul Providers, who lay down a richly organic set of guitar-and-organ-dominated funk backings. Let's Get a Groove On is blatantly derivative of its influences, but the simple act of returning wholeheartedly to those influences -- in a musical climate which has assimilated and moved away from them -- could in itself be considered an innovation. Regardless, it's a stunning performance from Fields and the record that fulfills Desco's promise -- quite possibly one of 1999's best, and definitely one of its most overlooked.
Lee Fields
Let's Get a Groove On
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AllMusic Review by Steve Huey
Track Listing
| Sample | Title/Composer | Performer | Time | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:36 | |||||
| 2 | 2:54 | |||||
| 3 | 4:18 | |||||
| 4 | 3:10 | |||||
| 5 | 2:50 | |||||
| 6 | 3:32 | |||||
| 7 | 3:56 | |||||
| 8 | 5:30 | |||||
| 9 | 3:12 | |||||
| 10 | 3:47 | |||||
| 11 | 3:10 |
