GC Cameron
Shadows
Produced by G.C. and Minnesota-based producer Ben Obi, "Shadows" reflects many of G.C.'s musical influences from Marvin Gaye (his ex-brother-in-law and the man who auditioned him from Motown) to Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and Curtis Mayfield. Drop this into the CD player and it may be a while before you'll want to listen to anything else.
From the first bars of G.C. Cameron's latest CD, Shadows, its clear that this man can still sing. I will confess that, prior to his brief reunion stint with the Spinners in 2000, I hadn't heard G.C. Cameron sing in over 20 years. My loss. On Shadows he shows he can still rip the cover off the ball, bringing a multi-octave gutsy Southern Soul sound to these eleven solid cuts.
The production on Shadows, by G.C. and Ben Obi, is sparse (mostly just electronic keyboards and a drum machine), putting his voice (often multi-tracked) in the forefront. But there are nice touches throughout the disc, especially Yashua Ashanti's gospel-like organ intro on the title cut and Jason Peterson Delaire's sax solo on "Fallen Bridges." However, the real star of the disc is G.C.'s voice. Whether attacking the opening cut, "Foolish," smoothing it out on the terrific title cut -- one of my favorite cuts of the past year -- or showing off his still-wonderful falsetto (which sounds quite a bit like fellow Temptation Ron Tyson's) on the second half of the disc, Cameron takes the solid material on Shadows to higher level. In fact, there are times on the disc when his voice is so nimble that he sounds like an entire soul group (take a listen to "Starship Rock" and you'll think it's the Dramatics singing).
As a soul music fan, I'm glad to see G.C. Cameron back on top, playing to international audiences as part of the Temptations. However, I'm equally glad to be reintroduced to him as a first-rate soul singer through the release of Shadows. Highly recommended.
Urban/R&B: Motown