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"Impala" LaMorris Williams (New Album Alert!) Composed by LaMorris Williams
March 15, 2023: LaMorris Williams New Album Alert! Buy LaMorris Williams new RUMORS album at Apple.
RUMORS TRACK LIST1.
Rumors
2
One Woman Man
3
Swing My Way
4
Go Hard
5
Lick Back
6
Independent Lady
7
Can I Get A Witness
8
This Is How We Play
Daddy B. Nice notes: LaMorris is paranoid. "What people say about me" / "So many lies..." is on his mind in the title tune "Rumors," a mid-tempo vehicle with a subtle stepping groove (#17 Daddy B. Nice's Top 40 Southern Soul Singles March 2023). Slightly more uptempo, "Can I Get A Witness? (#10 Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 Singles February 2023) plies an equally pleasing groove. LaMorris gives storied title "Swing My Way" a new look, giving the set at least three catchy, albeit subtle, line-dance-like singles.
Listen to all the tracks from LaMorris Williams' new RUMORS album on YouTube.
Buy LaMorris Williams' new RUMORS album at Apple.
Buy LaMorris Williams new RUMORS album at Amazon.
November 20, 2022: LaMorris Williams New Album Alert! Buy LaMorris Williams new MUTANT: STOLEN DREAMS album at Apple.
MUTANT: STOLEN DREAMS TRACK LIST1.
Spoil Her
2
My Place
3
From The Country
4
If My Girl Can't Come
5
Best Friend For Life
6
Best Bitch
7
Piece Of My Love
8
Complicated
9
Black Skin
Daddy B. Nice notes: Once again, LaMorris Williams has put out two albums in a year (2020)(scroll down). Not only has LaMorris released MUTANT: STOLEN DREAMS---strange title---but another album, Elephant In The Room appeared earlier. The only promotional heads-up I can remember was for the single "From The Country".
LaMorris has opted for a "path less taken" approach to fame. His bookings are minimal, his promotional apparatus...well, there is none, and he may even be disillusioned with the southern soul scene. He may not be turning his back on southern soul, but he refuses to cater to it, and his creative stance carries over into his material. This is not a singer/songwriter searching desperately for a trendy, hit single. (With the possible exception of "For The Country".) It's an artist staying simple and true to himself, recording songs that pique his interest. "If My Girl Can't Come" is a good example. "Best Friend For Life" is another.
"Piece Of Your Love" is the nastiest "grown-folks" song I've heard in awhile. The protagonist is cheating on a wife who "gets off at eleven". "Bad Bitch" has this head-turner: "Wait a minute, baby, I didn't call you nothing. You called yourself a bad bitch. I'm just agreeing with you." LaMorris Williams is into his own world for sure, and more often than not it's musically gorgeous.
Listen to all the tracks from LaMorris Williams' new MUTANT: STOLEN DREAMS on YouTube.
Buy LaMorris Williams' new MUTANT: STOLEN DREAMS album at Apple.
November 28, 2020: LaMorris Williams New Album Alert! Buy LaMorrris Williams' new ANOTHER LEVEL CD at Amazon.
ANOTHER LEVEL TRACK LIST1.
Dm
2
Lay Here Forever
3
Hooked
4
Gimme Some
Umma Love You
6
Everything I Got
7
Die 4 You
Daddy B. Nice notes: ANOTHER LEVEL follows quickly on the heels of UNFINISHED BUSINESS, released by LaMorris earlier this year. (Scroll down.) The new set is small---seven tracks---perhaps a response to Daddy B Nice's summation of UNFINISHED BUSINESS as an emotionally "down" album. ANOTHER LEVEL is no MISSISSIPPI MOTOWN, lauded by Daddy B Nice as Williams' "masterpiece" (see Tidbits #6 by scrolling down this page), but songs like "Everything I Got" recall the pristine production and supple melodies (along with explicit lyrics) that made MISSISSIPPI MOTOWN such a gorgeous collection. "Stay Here Forever" typifies LaMorris's renewed focus on beauty and intimacy. UNFINISHED BUSINESS is still in play, marketing-wise, actually charting higher than ANOTHER LEVEL on some charts. Scroll down for Daddy B Nice's synopsis.
Buy LaMorris Williams' new ANOTHER LEVEL album at Apple.
Listen to all the tracks from LaMorris Williams' new ANOTHER LEVEL on YouTube.
May 19, 2020: LaMorris Williams New Album Alert! Buy LaMorris William's new UNFINISHED BUSINESS album at Google Play.
1
Flew'ed Out
2
Let the Juices Flow
3
Breaking up Don't Feel Good
4
Too Late
5
That's the Woman
6
Slow Dance
7
I Dont Wanna Fight (feat. Tameka Tiny Harris)
8
My Baby the Best
9
I Just Wanna Ride
10
Next Friday (feat. Sir Charles Jones)
11
Saddle Up
12
Too Late (Radio Edit)
Daddy B. Nice notes: The first thing fans will notice about LaMorris Williams' Unfinished Business is a harder, more jaded tone, especially when compared to LaMorris's gorgeously-melodic, 5-star-ranked Mississippi Motown CD of 2016 (scroll down this page). Despite isolated, romantically-inclined tunes like "Slow Dance," what stands out on the new disc is a brusk, almost curt attitude best illustrated by new songs like "I Don't Wanna Fight"(feat. Tameka Tiny Harris) and the bluesy "Breaking up Don't Feel Good". LaMorris's best single of the last couple of years, "Too Late," is included. It's the song with the explicit lyrics, "I done cooked, I done cleaned/ I been fucking the nigger since I was 16/ I gave him 27 years, four kids/ Treated that man like a king". And it comes off as one of the more melodic and gentle songs of the set.
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "Too Late" on YouTube.
Curiously, "All About Us," the winsome single that charted in February 2019, is absent. LaMorris's flippant, funk-influenced version of the Sir Charles Jones classic, "Friday," called "Next Friday," appears on UNFINISHED BUSINESS, but his duet with C-Wright, "Liquor House Muzik," which charted in October 2019, does not.
"Liquor House Muzik" mirrors the tempo and tone of "Let The Juices Flow," one of the more dominant tracks from the new LP. The latter has a lot in common--more of an acoustic rap, a chant--with LaMorris's debut single from years ago, "Ring On Your Finger," albeit with less energy and gusto. While Unfinished Business will slake hard-core fans' thirst for new LaMorris material, it likely won't appeal to new fans in the way the more tuneful and masterful Mississippi Motown did.
But don't count LaMorris out on first impressions. From insinuating dance numbers like 'That's The Woman (For Me), with hand-claps that will get anyone but the completely paralyzed on the club floor, to solid slow jams like "Slow Dance," his new album Unfinished Business may yet prove to be a major piece in the LaMorris Williams canon.
Buy LaMorris Williams' new UNFINISHED BUSINESS CD at Apple.
Listen to all the tracks from LaMorris Williams' UNFINISHED BUSINESS album on YouTube.
Listen to LaMorris Williams' UNFINISHED BUSINESS album on Spotify.
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "I'm Concerned" on YouTube while you read.
September 4, 2016:
LaMorris Williams Climbs From #22 to #18 on Daddy B. Nice's Top 100 Countdown:
21st Century Southern Soul. The chart encompasses the period from 2000 to 2016.
Daddy B. Nice's Original Critique:
"You can make me holler
In the back of my Impala."
Southern Soul musicians of the next generation will be referencing that phrase in their songs the way contemporary singers reference Theodis Ealey's "Stand Up In It" today.
On a scale of one to five stars, LaMorris Williams' "Impala" rates ten. The song is a perfect storm of musical elements: a beautiful, almost choral structure and melody, an affecting spoken introduction, an arrangement so inspired it seems divinely out-sourced, and a unique new male vocalist, already in full flower.
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "Impala" on YouTube while you read.
On first impression, the song insists on slowing you down, the way the early Sir Charles Jones classics forced you to slow down, and like those early Jones' songs, Williams' "Impala"--initially aired as "We Can Do It"--uses its liturgical beat to deliver cutting-edge approaches to the blues and soul.
The arrangement balances a classic piano background emphasizing the melody and bass lines with an ethereal-sounding, upper-scale, synthesized, xylophone-style background hook (three slowly descending notes) that threatens to overwhelm the song at times, so seductive is its repetitive, lingering echo.
Above it all floats the voice of LaMorris Williams, a man with a rare vocal gift--and a charismatic timbre like Outkast's Andre' Benjamin--by turns speaking and singing his way through the song's exceptionally detailed lyrics.
"Impala" weaves these elements into a musical mix that recalls childhood roundelays. Meanwhile, the words create a genuine world of the deep and rural South. The experience is rendered with such clarity that it instantly becomes universal: it could be taking place in a roadhouse anywhere, in any state, to anybody.
Here's a taste of the story. It's LaMorris's spoken introduction, delivered over the song's sparkling prelude:
We were riding back from a show I did up in the Delta. We passed a little cafe. It looked like it held about fifty people. It had about a hundred cars outside. So we decided to turn around and go join the fun and have ourselves a drink. We made our way to the bar, ordered two shots of Remy. And you know, it's funny, out of all fifty women in this place, I didn't see but one. I couldn't see nothing else. In the mirror she was dancing all by herself, yea, with her sexy little red dress on, slow-rolling to the song. I knew I had to pass that dance floor going to the exit. We wasn't going to stay long. I got up, and right when I got ready to pass, I wanted to grab her hand but my palms were a little sweaty. I was kinda nervous. And I'll never believe what this woman told me:
We can do it in any old spot,
We can do it in the parking lot.
We can do it in the shower.
Baby, let's go for hours.
Said, I'm feeling your style.
Let's go grind for a little while.
You can make me holler
In the back of my Impala.
Think of all the trite, repetitive, silly, nonsensical, going-through-the-motions lyrics you've heard in Southern Soul songs about men making passes in bars, and you'll immediately recognize why this vivid slice of life jumps out of the speakers like reality itself.
A dozen years ago, a young man named Sir Charles Jones made a similarly indelible impression, bringing soul music into a new era with a unique take on creating and arranging songs. But the formula for his breakthrough lay primarily in his extraordinary voice and the intense passion he brought to his perception of the ordinary world.
Thus "Slow Roll It" (given to the Love Doctor but birthed, arranged and co-sung by Sir Charles), "Friday" and "Is Anybody Lonely" marked the beginning of a fresh era in Southern Soul music.
LaMorris Williams brings the same characteristics to the fore in his "Impala," and Sir Charles Jones himself, now a grown man and leader of the Southern Soul community, has recognized the younger artist's once-in-a-generation breakthrough qualities, even going so far as telling your Daddy B. Nice he sees himself in the young star.
And LaMorris Williams is breaking his own path by following the same (and only) formula that works: powerful singing and passionate takes on real life. His presence on Southern Soul playlists, in Southern Soul concerts and venues, and on the Web has grown exponentially in just three short years since he recorded a Will T. "Mississippi Boy"-type song titled "Ring On Your Finger."
If anyone tells you they had heard of LaMorris Williams before 2008, there's a 99% chance they're lying and a 1% chance they're family. 2008 is the year young LaMorris slipped "Ring On Your Finger" to DJ Handyman and a handful of other deejays at Jackson, Mississippi's WMPR and a few other stations in central Mississippi.
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "Ring On Your Finger" on YouTube while you read.
Not much more than a one-chord chant, really, melodically much simpler than the "Impala" single, which would come out a year later, "Ring On Your Finger" nevertheless jumped out of the radio based on its emotional intensity and its singular singing.
It was a voice that featured soul with an irresistable country drawl, a voice that sounded at times like the bleating of a lamb, a voice, in short, whose simultaneous ability to convey strength and vulnerability made it stand out immediately from the multitude of soul singers.
I've been knowing you, Sugar,
A long time.
Baby, you're always
On my mind.
You got a way
Of keeping me motivated.
That's why I'm gonna love you,
Let me take care of your baby.
Gonna put that ring on your finger,
Walk it down the aisle,
Change your name to mine, baby,
Help take care of your child.
"I wanna fill you up
With a lifetime of memories,"
LaMorris sings after the chorus of
"Gonna put that ring on your finger" sung over and over--
"Have a couple more babies,
Start a family."
The specificity of the lyrics, their obvious source in real life and their stark simplicity, were a revelation to listeners grown accustomed to hearing hackneyed cliche's in middle-of-the-road chitlin' circuit soul.
And then, when a mysterious song known at first as "We Can Do It" was leaked to the same deejays a little over a year later, fans like your Daddy B. Nice were thrown into a tizzy: "Who does it? What's the title?" "Impala," in all its aural glory, had arrived, and LaMorris's star had ascended.
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To automatically link to LaMorris Williams' charted radio singles, awards, CD's and other citations on the website, go to "Williams, LaMorris" in Daddy B. Nice's Comprehensive Index.
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--Daddy B. Nice
About LaMorris Williams (New Album Alert!)
LaMorris Williams is the son of Leonard Williams, an original member of the Grammy-nominated Gospel group The Williams Brothers of Smithdale, Mississippi. LaMorris was a musical prodigy, playing drums and singing background on professional projects before he was ten years old. While still in his teens, he logged studio sessions on various national hiphop releases and co-produced numerous gospel projects with his father.
Towards the end of the 90's, with Johnnie Taylor and Tyrone Davis and other Southern Soul greats in their second heyday, and with Southern Soul music filling the air waves in his home state of Mississippi, LaMorris decided to focus on the resurgence of the little-known genre rather than gospel or hiphop.
He began writing his own songs, arranging, producing and self-publishing. The CD Issues (1999) contained the first incarnation of the song "Pretty Lady," later to achieve popularity on the Sexy Soul Songs CD.
The album U Love U Learn (Melendo 2004) included the first version of "Whatever Kind Of Love," the anchor song of his next disc, and also "One Blessing," a gospel tune that would log space on all of LaMorris's subsequent albums.
LaMorris Williams Sings The Blues/New School Blues (Melendo 2006) was the artist's first CD to be nationally distributed (via CD Baby), and copies were still available up until around 2008. Since then, the album has disappeared, and at the time of this writing no copies--new or used--were for sale, even on used-records sites such as Amazon.
"Whatever Kind Of Love" was the best track from the collection, a well-done, middle-range ballad that showcased LaMorris's sweet-as-honey vocal tone to spectacular effect. The album also contained versions of songs that would be reprinted or reworked on subsequent CD's, including "Hello Lady," "Pretty Lady" and "One Blessing."
LaMorris's single, "Ring On Your Finger," was distributed to local Delta radio outlets in 2008 and created a buzz among avid Southern Soul fans. See Daddy B. Nice Southern Soul Music Award for Best "Out Of Left Field" Southern Soul Song of 2008: "Ring On Your Finger" by LaMorris Williams.
Williams' breakthrough single, "Impala," was released in 2009 and quickly spread by word of mouth throughout the chitlin' circuit, becoming a fixture of Southern Soul radio in 2010.
Daddy B. Nice's TOP 25 SOUTHERN SOUL SONGS OF 2009
2. "Impala (We Can Do It)"------------------LaMorris Williams
A Southern Soul legend--the youngest of the gospel-singing Williams family--is born. In 2008 he teased us with "Ring On Your Finger"; in 2009 he wowed us with "Impala (We Can Do It)." The long-anticipated album will be available soon. These words from "Impala"--
"You can make me holler
In the back of my Impala."
--will become Southern Soul currency for years to come.
The CD Sexy Soul Songs (Rocks Landon) arrived later in the year. The song contained not only "Ring On Your Finger" and "Impala" but a number of songs that would garner air time: "Pretty Lady," "Make Your Body Roll" and "Just For A Little While."
The album was a sensation in Mississippi and surrounding areas, catapulting Williams into the middle-to-upper ranks of Southern Soul artists, where he quickly became a fixture (and strong draw) at chitlin' circuit audience venues.
The CD Ladies 1st, newly released at the time of this writing, arrived in March of 2012, just as its first single, "You Make Me Happy" (a duet with Al Green), was clinbing deejay playlists.
Song's Transcendent Moment
"We can do it in any old spot,
We can do it in the parking lot.
We can do it in the shower.
Baby, let's go for hours.
Said, I'm feeling your style.
Let's go grind for a little while.
You can make me holler
In the back of my Impala."
Tidbits
1.
March 25, 2012:
There is a plenitude of LaMorris Williams music to sample on YouTube:
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "Pretty Lady" on YouTube.
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "Impala" on YouTube.
Listen to LaMorris singing "Impala" Live Onstage on YouTube.
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "Make Your Body Roll" Live Onstage on YouTube.
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "Ring On Your Finger" on YouTube.
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "Get Close To Me" with L. J. Echols on YouTube.
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "Impala" and Gettting Freaky with a Fan Onstage on YouTube. (R-rated.)
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "Nobody's Gonna Love Me Like You" on YouTube. (Track from the rare indie r&b/gospel cd "Lamorris Williams - U Live & U Learn (2003.))
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "It's You, Baby" on YouTube.
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "Where You Been Hidin'" on YouTube. (Track from the rare indie r&b album "Lamorris Williams - Issues (1999))
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "I Still Love You" on YouTube.. (Track from the rare indie r&b album "Lamorris Williams - Issues (1999))
Listen to LaMorris Williams On The Road: (Take a quick look at a day in the life of Lamorris Williams as he kicks it with his fans and rocks a crowd of over 10,000 people!)
2.
March 27, 2012: Daddy B. Nice CD Review
May 23, 2010:
LAMORRIS WILLIAMS: Sexy Soul Songs: Vol. 1, The Ladies' Edition (Mabrey) Four Stars **** Distinguished Southern Soul Debut by a New Male Vocalist w/ One Previous LP.
Sexy Soul Songs is one of the most accomplished appearances by a new Southern Soul artist in recent memory. LaMorris Williams, according to the liner notes, has recorded a half-dozen LP's, but only one has been introduced to the national audience, via CD Baby: LaMorris Williams Sings The New School Blues (Melendo). Anchored by a sweet-tempered and even more sweetly-sung, mid-tempo tune, "Whatever Kind Of Love," the album has recently sold out its first printing and become unavailable.
Meanwhile, the centerpiece of the new disc, "Impala," has been burning up the air waves in select chitlin' circuit locations--particularly Jackson, Mississippi--for the better part of the last year.
"Ring On Your Finger," a rousing, quasi-acapella, intentionally-rough single reminiscent of Floyd Hamberlin's and Charles Wilson's "Mississippi Boy," preceded "Impala" and first charted on Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "Breaking" Southern Soul singles in September 2008.
"Ring On Your Finger" also won an end-of-the-year "Daddy" award for "Best Out-Of-Left-Field Song of 2008."
"Impala" made its first appearance on the Top 10 "Breaking" Southern Soul singles in July of 2009 under the title "We Can Do It," fresh off its first airing on WMPR, Jackson, Mississippi.
"Impala" charted again in September 2009 and at year's end was a nominee for numerous awards. It was the recipient of Daddy B. Nice's "Best Debut of 2009."
In short, this CD--first forecast for the autumn of 2009--has been long talked-about and anticipated. Still, I'd like to be a fly on the wall the first time Marvin Sease or Mel Waiters or Willie Clayton listens to this album. What will the old masters of Southern Soul think?
Will they dig it? Or will they be turned off by the Snoop-type synthesizer fill in the brief but melodic "Intro" that kicks off the album, or by the way Sir Charles (of all people) does a P. Diddy-like voice-over of LaMorris's name? Will they relate? Or will they be put off by the Timbaland style of the "Stroke It With The Motion" rhythm track, or by the Boyz 2 Men vocal stylings? In short, will they call this Southern Soul?
What the opening cuts of Sexy Soul Songs make clear is that this is not a Southern Soul album in the traditional sense, or even in the sense that the two aforementioned singles--"Ring On Your Finger" and "Impala"--may have led Southern Soul fans to expect.
While "Impala" incorporates many of the best elements of hiphop into its unique approach to Southern Soul, the song doesn't really indicate the extent to which the young LaMorris Williams has bought into the hiphop style.
Like the cover photo of LaMorris with thick black shades and a head tilted to display that diamond stud in his ear, Sexy Soul Songs will surprise the listener with its hiphop affectations, both personal and musical.
And when you ponder that it's the "King of Southern Soul," Sir Charles Jones, producing the cut--"Stroke It With A Motion" (his only contribution)--you're likely to think about what might have been accomplished in a traditional vein by a pairing of such exceptional rhythm-and-blues performers.
But soon enough comes "Impala" (Track 3), the centerpiece of the album.
A LaMorris voice-over narrative--totally convincing--sets the scene: two young musicians on the way back from a gig, stopping at a little roadhouse with a lot of cars in the parking lot. LaMorris and Big Yayo order drinks and LaMorris zeroes in on a girl in a "sexy little red dress" dancing by herself. He makes his move and, as sometimes happens, the lady stuns him with her reciprocity. She's ready to get it on.
"We can do it in any spot.
We can do it in the parking lot.
We can do it in the shower,
Baby, let's go for hours. . . .
You can make me holla,
In the back of my Impala."
Musically, the song works to perfection. Strong bass line. Strong piano chords. Slowwww beat. And LaMorris, simultaneously singing background and talking voice-over. This is a soul-singing talent as pure as you're going to find anywhere, and "Impala" is a spectacular song. It may take a couple of listenings, but once the hook sets in, the song takes on stadium-like dimensions, and LaMorris--singing and talking foreground, backgrounds and choruses--is its impresario.
How much of this superbly original song is writer/producer Big Yayo's doing? It's obvious he deserves at the very least great credit. The song delivers a wallop that no other song on the CD possesses, while accomplishing a feat that is nigh impossible: delivering a thoroughly Southern Soul song in a stripped-down urban style.
At once instantly accessible and endlessly fascinating, "Impala" is destined to become a Southern Soul classic. If lightning strikes, it could easily cross over as a mainstream hit, every detail intact. In short, "Impala" the song alone is worth the price of the album.
But although essentially an album built around a hit single, Sexy Soul Songs has plenty more.
"Ring On Your Finger"--written, produced and performed by LaMorris--is the next best cut on the CD. LaMorris styles but he's no thug, and the refreshing theme of "Ring" is the excitement of making a woman happy in the most traditional way.
"I want to fill you up
With a lifetime of memories.
Have a couple more babies,
Start our family."
It's just a one-chord chant, which unfortunately is what passes for generic Southern Soul these days, but within its musical limits, "Ring On Your Finger" is enormously effective.
"I'm gonna put that ring on your finger.
Walk you down the line.
Change your name to mine,
Help take care of your child."
The message is moral and upstanding, and yet it's delivered with irreverence and orneriness, with the gusto and passion more often associated with Saturday night than with Sunday morning. Or, the song implies, maybe we're just not accustomed to being mesmerized and seduced by anybody but "bad boys."
Williams' singing--immediately engaging and yet deeply nuanced, an amalgam of gospel, R&B and other influences--is so effortless it's easily taken for granted. But all one has to do in order to appreciate what a rare event it represents is to compare LaMorris' execution with practically any other young performer recording today. LaMorris' confidence and technical mastery are astounding.
Next up in terms of importance is "Pretty Lady," written and produced by Roger Trapman. Frequently heard of late on Southern Soul radio, the tune always seems a little off-putting with its Strawberry Fields-like, synthesizer-dominated arrangement and vocal distortion. With a singer as good as LaMorris, why is distortion needed? Doesn't it really distract and diminish?
And yet, within the context of the album, "Pretty Lady" comes off as almost central--an accurate summary of the hiphop influences imbedded in the CD. The melody, not to mention the helpful contrast of the uncredited female background-singing, boosts the song's profile and makes it one of the more enduring cuts on the album.
"Make Your Body Roll (Just Roll)," another chant-slash-hook, doesn't work as well as "Ring On Your Finger." Obviously tailored for the dancehall crowd that loves to grind pelvises to ditties like Steve Perry's "Booty Roll," it's the kind of song that should work for LaMorris but doesn't--not the way it does with "Ring," at any rate. It's fun only because it's fascinating to hear more vocal traits from LaMorris's bag of techniques.
"Just For A Little While," "You Made A Way," "Impala (Part 2)" and "One Blessing" complete the album. In "Just For A Little While" LaMorris does something traditional and (compared to the rest of the CD) fairly understated, with good results. The melody and the vocal are exemplary.
"You Made A Man" is similar: a secondary song done effectively by a singer whose "Impala" has gained our interest and patience in practically anything the artist puts his mind to do.
"Impala (Part 2)" is a synthesizer-laced doodling with the album's prize cut. It plays with the "Impala" hook without the meat of the song or the voice-over narration, and basically exists to reinforce the power of the "Impala" theme.
Finally, "One Blessing" closes out the CD with a return to the gospel roots from which LaMorris sprang.
Sexy Soul Songs burns a path into new and original territory. It's a milestone CD--not many come along--and if you're into Southern Soul music, you're going to have to check out "Impala" and come to terms with it. LaMorris Williams is a powerful new addition to the Southern Soul family of artists, and his "Impala" is destined for the "classics" shelf.
--Daddy B. Nice
3.
December 31, 2013: Excerpted from...
Daddy B. Nice's Top Ten "Breaking" Southern Soul Singles for December 2013
1. "You Bad"-----LaMorris Williams
What a surprise from LaMorris! His best since.... "You can make me holla / In the back of my Impala." The new one goes....
"You're the kind of girl I like.
I'm gonna take you for my wife.
Oh yeah, gone tell your mama.
Michelle, Barack Obama.
I'm gone take you home tonight.
Baby, you bad. You bad."
Your Daddy B. Nice's approximation of the middle couplet ("Gone tell your mama / Michelle, Barack Obama") may not be correct (the song hasn't been officially released yet), but be warned some version of it will be on everyone's lips in 2014, picking up where Nellie "Tiger" Travis's highly popular and similarly hard-edged "Sexy Man" ("Hey mista sexy man / What yo name is?") left off in 2013.
See more about LaMorris in Daddy B. Nice's Mailbag.
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4.
January 1, 2014:
CHART CLIMBERS 2014: LaMorris Williams and his hit Southern Soul song "Impala" climbs from #48 to #22 on Daddy B. Nice's Top 100 21st Century Southern Soul Artist Countdown.
Go to the complete library for Daddy B. Nice's Top 100 Countdown: 21st Century Southern Soul Artists
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5.
May 1, 2016: NEW CD REVIEW ALERT
See Daddy B. Nice's new 5-star "Southern Soul Heaven" CD Review of LaMorris's MISSISSIPPI MOTOWN CD!
April 3, 2016: NEW ALBUM ALERT
Sample/Buy LaMorris William's MISSISSIPPI MOTOWN CD at CD Baby.
Watch & Listen to The Official Video of LaMorris Williams singing "Junk In Yo Trunk" on YouTube.
Listen to LaMorris Williams singing "The Guitar Song" on YouTube.
6. April 25, 2016: LAMORRIS WILLIAMS: Mississippi Motown (LaMorris Williams / Rockslandon Ent.) Five Stars ***** Can't Miss. Pure Southern Soul Heaven. If you're a fan who's only going to buy two or three southern soul CD's this year, this momentous new album by LaMorris Williams should be one of them. With a buffet of eighteen (!) new songs, MISSISSIPPI MOTOWN boasts the sterling audio quality of a Vick Allen, Willie Clayton, Sir Charles Jones or T.K. Soul CD with the up-to-the-minute variety and originality of the recent LOUISIANA BLUES BROTHERS or BEAT FLIPPA I GOT THE BLUES CD's.
LaMorris is one of the young geniuses of the genre, much written about here since his stunning debut with the Big Yayo-produced single, "Impala."
"A Southern Soul legend--the youngest of the gospel-singing Williams family--is born," Daddy B. Nice wrote in 2009. "In 2008 he teased us with "Ring On Your Finger"; in 2009 he wowed us with "Impala (We Can Do It)." The long-anticipated album will be available soon. These words from "Impala"--
"You can make me holler
In the back of my Impala."
--will become Southern Soul currency for years to come."
And they did. LaMorris's first southern soul album, SEXY SOUL SONGS, with "Impala," "Ring On Your Finger" and "Pretty Lady," remains a classic to this day. LADIES FIRST, the follow-up album in 2012, with the "Impala"-tinged "On The Way Home" and an eye-opening duet with Al Green, was nevertheless a bit of a let-down, interesting but very much in the shadow of SEXY SOUL SONGS. And that's been it, as far as albums, since 2012, a long, dry stretch during which LaMorris, however, has dropped a number of interesting new singles, all charting here and all featured on the new CD, including one song, "You Bad," about which the singer and I may disagree.
LaMorris must have "tossed off" "You Bad" as a joke or novelty song. He doesn't seem to think much of it. This is the track your Daddy B. Nice heard at random on WMPR (Jackson, Ms.) one afternoon over two years ago. It was obviously a one-time thing, LaMorris checking out how the song sounded on the radio. "You Bad" had the lovable quality of a nursery rhyme, with funky and funny lyrics--an every-man quality of unrealized potential--and I promptly made it #1.
Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles Review For. . .
DECEMBER 2013
1. "You Bad"-----LaMorris Williams
"What a surprise from LaMorris!" Daddy B. Nice wrote. "His best since.... "You can make me holla / In the back of my Impala."
"You're the kind of girl I like.
I'm gonna take you for my wife.
Oh yeah, gone tell your mama.
Michelle, Barack Obama.
I'm gone take you home tonight.
Baby, you bad. You bad."
So LaMorris was recording tracks for that "next" album--he was pointing toward this album--even then. Two months previously (October 2013), I had been less than enthusiastic (a little skeptical, let's say) about a LaMorris-released single, "It's Whatever," one of a spate of songs that year (Floyd Taylor's "It's On Me," Chuck Strong's "Can I Spend Some Money On You?") which featured male artists bragging about how they were going to shower riches on their bread-winning ladies.
In March of 2014 "Super Man"("I Wanna Be Your Superman") came out. If memory serves, it just leaked out. In fact, I first heard the soothing melody from "Super Man" as a bump LaMorris did for WMPR DJ Handyman, who dutifully played it every afternoon for the Jackson, Mississippi area. (LaMorris lives outside Jackson.)
By 2015 you could tell LaMorris was gearing up for something big with the release of the highly-accomplished "The Guitar Song." It charted here with a bullet.
Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles Preview For. . .
-------JULY 2015---------
1. "The Guitar Song"-----LaMorris Williams
"Just when we'd begun to overlook him with the emergence of even younger new stars like J'Wonn, Tucka and Pokey," Daddy B. Nice wrote, "LaMorris reminds us of why we thought he was such a unique vocalist when he hit the scene."
Finally, just this month------APRIL 2016--------- LaMorris released another official single, including a video, of "Junk In Yo Trunk," currently charting at #8.
Here's a snapshot of the other delectables in MISSISSIPPI MOTOWN, so fresh the grocer just put them out.
"Single Too Long" is one of the finest blues numbers LaMorris has ever attempted, featuring a groove-friendly, looping bass line and the scintillating guitar work that distinguishes the material throughout.
"Slow Motion" is a "Slow Roll It"-like ballad produced with exquisite care and variation.
"Elevator Love," also a "Slow Roll It" tempo-ed song, spices up LaMorris's morning-fresh vocals with background choruses.
The vocal on "I'm Concerned" is quintessential LaMorris, combining bare, acapella-like verses (over light guitar background) with synthesizer-enhanced choruses.
For southern-soul diehards, "Show Me How 2 Step," is an off-putting exercise in urban r&b, with Cupid guesting. Not sure I ever wanted LaMorris to go there. With a female co-singer, "5 Senses" is also formatted for contemporary urban radio. Is LaMorris defecting?
This whole drift into urban/hiphop culminates with a couple of beautifully-conceived, showpiece numbers, "Dream Girl" and "Love Is," both similarly positioned by LaMorris in a new firmament for southern soul music. Will these new tunes play on southern soul radio? We're a long way from Z.Z. Hill's "Down Home Blues," and even a long way from "Ring On Your Finger." Stay tuned.
Most eye-opening is the tremendous "Let Me Know." Although it has traces of urban flavor, it inches back to southern soul, the kind of southern soul you'd hear on Chico's Radio next to Ves's/Kenne' Wayne's "We Do We." Here you get a true glimpse of what LaMorris is trying to do--forge a new amalgam of southern soul and hiphop/urban. It's music, universal, like all the best southern soul. This is a daring and serious album.
--Daddy B. Nice
Sample/Buy LaMorris Williams' MISSISSIPPI MOTOWN CD at CD Baby.
Sample/Buy LaMorris Williams' MISSISSIPPI MOTOWN CD at iTunes.
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If You Liked. . . You'll Love
If you liked Sir Charles Jones' "The Letter (Guilty)," you'll love LaMorris Williams' "Impala."
Honorary "B" Side
"Ring On Your Finger"
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Impala
CD: Sexy Soul Songs
Label: Rocks Landon Ent.
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Ring On Your Finger
CD: Sexy Soul Songs
Label: Rocks Landon Ent.
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Whatever Kind Of Love
CD: LaMorris Williams Sings The Blues/New School Blues
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You Make Me Happy (w/ Al Green)
CD: Ladies 1st
Label: Rocks Landon
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Pretty Lady
CD: Sexy Soul Songs
Label: Rocks Landon Ent.
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Song For The Lonely
CD: Ladies 1st
Label: Rocks Landon
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Get Close To Me (w/ L. J. Echols)
CD: Ladies 1st
Label: Rocks Landon
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It's You Baby
CD: Ladies 1st
Label: Rocks Landon
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Just For A Little While
CD: Sexy Soul Songs
Label: Rocks Landon Ent.
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Make Your Body Roll
CD: Sexy Soul Songs
Label: Rocks Landon Ent.
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One Blessing
CD: Sexy Soul Songs
Label: Rocks Landon Ent.
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