Arthur Young Jumps to #18 The New Generation
March 1, 2022: "Funky Forty" is now the 18th-ranked southern soul single...
...and Arthur Young is now the #18-ranked southern soul artist on Daddy B Nice's new Top-100 Chart---The New Generation. Click here.
March 1, 2021:
NEW ALBUM ALERT!
Buy Arthur Young's new A Trucker's Blues, Vol. 2 (Country Boy Noise) album at Amazon.
A Trucker's Blues, Vol. 2 (Country Boy Noise) TRACK LIST:
1
Drunk Man
2
Gears
3
Wife On The Side
4
Throw That Thang
5
Love Cost
6
BBW
7
Good Booty Judy
8
Country Boi Slide
9
Swang
10
Bill Collectors (Down In The Pike)
Daddy B. Nice notes:
If there was any doubt that Arthur Young is one of the finest singer/songwriters to come down the pike in many years, his new album
A Trucker's Blues, Vol. 2 (Country Boy Noise) should send any doubters scurrying back to their burrows. If anything, Young's sophomore album is even stronger than his celebrated first. Ronald "Slack" Jefferson from the Jeter Jones "family" is the producer, and he must lick his lips every time Young brings him a new song with lyrics that many another artist would commit felonies to author.
Young is a worthy successor to the legendary Tyrone Davis and more recently the beloved O.B. Buchana. He occupies that hard-to-define middle ground of southern soul, where modest and unassuming tempos and melodies rise like oven-baked bread to a delectable fruition. Enthusiasm, wit and "man-shoe"-sized experience mingle in an intoxicating potpourri of talent. Whether you focus on the musical compositions, the lyrics or the delivery (instrumental track and vocals), you are transported and entertained.
In "Drunk Man" you might focus on the strength of the melody, in "Love Cost," you might focus on the powerful and convincing vocal, in "Wife On The Side" you might focus on the witty juxtaposition of "wife" and "girlfriend".
Lyrically, we haven't seen a songwriter this enthused and engaged and in love with his craft since
Luther Lackey (who unfortunately dropped by the wayside). In
"Good Booty Judy" every verse is an opportunity for Young to riff on similes, metaphors and catch-phrases from everyday life.
"Sometimes I call her Geico,
Because fifteen minutes is all I need...
Sometimes I call her All-State,
Because that girl got her good hands on me..."
Arthur Young genuinely revels in making ordinary life special.
Listen to all the tracks from Arthur Young's new A Trucker's Blues, Vol. 2 (Country Boy Noise) album on YouTube.
Buy Arthur Young's new A Trucker's Blues, Vol. 2 (Country Boy Noise) album at Apple.
Listen to Arthur Young's new A Trucker's Blues, Vol. 2 (Country Boy Noise) album on Spotify.
February 6, 2021: Daddy B. Nice’s Top 25 Songs of 2020#3 Song of 2020
3.
"Funky Forty"------Arthur Young
See Daddy B. Nice's "Best of 2020" awards.
Best Debut: "Funky Forty" and "Stroking" by Arthur Young
Listen to Arthur Young singing "Funky Forty" on YouTube.
August 21, 2020: NEW ALBUM ALERT!
Buy Arthur Young's new A TRUCKER'S BLUES album at Amazon.
A TRUCKER'S BLUES TRACK LIST:
1 Get Lit
2 Getting It in the Daylight
3 Windex Man
4 Drop It
5 Catfishing
6 Knock It
7 Loopty Loop
8 Funky Forty
9 Stroking
10 Slide wit It
Daddy B. Nice notes:
My first comments on Arthur Young's debut album came earlier this year (before there was even an album) in regard to "Catfishing," a song from the just-minted A TRUCKER'S BLUES that Arthur previewed on a Facebook page around the time he published his 4-song EP, FUNKY FORTY. (Scroll down this page.) Then, earlier this month, Arthur made Daddy B. Nice's
Mailbag (August 12th) when a reader wrote in as follows:
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August 12, 2020:Looking For A Song Letter: Arthur Young's "Catfishing"
Hey Daddy,
I'm a fan of Arthur Young, and I was interested by your comment in your "News & Notes" (August 1st) that you'd heard an early recording of Young's "Catfishing" on his Facebook page that was better than the one that's being previewed on YouTube ahead of the album release. Is that still up? Can you help me find that?
Shonda
Daddy B. Nice replies:
Sure, Shonda. That's still posted in Arthur's Artist Guide. But here it is again. I don't want to say it's the perfect production, but I like the thickness of the vocal and the more relaxed tempo. The updated version has a quicker tempo and a pared-down vocal that loses some of Arthur's charisma, I think. Oh, and by the way, my memory of it was a little off: Arthur's not playing the guitar, he's just singing along to his recording.
Listen to Arthur Young singing "Catfishing" on Facebook.
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Whatever you think of
"Catfishing," there's no doubting the talent Young possesses, and the well-deserved attention he's been getting from the fans and his older peers in southern soul music.
In less than a year his debut single
"Funky Forty" has amassed close to two million YouTube views and become a new classic among southern soul faithful.
It first charted here in February as follows:
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Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles For. . .
-------FEBRUARY 2020-------
…3. "Funky Forty"------Arthur Young
Bargain-priced sexual favors in the shadowy corners of the chitlin' circuit make for a funny and memorable tune that has already garnered a quarter-million YouTube views.
Listen to Arthur Young singing "Funky Forty" on YouTube.
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That was soon followed by the single "Stroking".
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Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles For. . .
-------APRIL 2020-------
…2. "Stroking" ---- Arthur Young
Clarence Carter would be proud of this young man's authoritative "Stroking". Young has already brought us the surefire classic "Funky Forty" (See #3, Top 10 Singles February 2020), and just as with that hit single, he has a knack for the right phrase. "I'll be crying in the morning/ I'll be begging in the evening/ But I bet I'll be strokin' tonight." From Arthur Young's Funky Forty EP.
Listen to Arthur Young singing "Stroking" on YouTube.
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And that in turn was succeeded by "Loopty Loop".
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Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles For. . .
-------JULY 2020-------
…9. "Loopty Loop"----Arthur Young
He's a natural, and if the breaks break right, he should have a long career.
Listen to Arthur Young singing "Loopty Loop" on YouTube.
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Other new cuts from A TRUCKER'S BLUES worth checking out are
"Getting It In The Daylight" and
"Get Lit". Few debut artists bring this measure of talent and such a thorough knowledge and love of southern soul culture.
Listen to all the tracks from Arthur Young's A TRUCKER'S BLUES on YouTube.
Buy Arthur Young's new A TRUCKER'S BLUES album at Apple.
Listen to Arthur Young's A TRUCKER'S BLUES on Spotify.
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To automatically link to Arthur Young's charted radio singles, awards, CD's and other citations on the website, go to "Arthur Young" in Daddy B. Nice's Comprehensive Index.
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April 4, 2020: Originally Posted in Daddy B. Nice's New CD Reviews:
April 4, 2020: Arthur Young: Funky Forty EP (Vigor Music). Four Stars **** Distinguished Debut By A New Southern Soul Artist.
Arthur Young has a no-frills video posted on his
Facebook page--just him
casually singing a song. Underneath the video are the words: "Rough draft to “Catfishing” What y’all think!!"
I'll tell you what your Daddy B. Nice thinks. Terrific. "Catfishing" will be as big or bigger than
"Funky Forty". Southern soul music has found itself a keeper.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
"Funky Forty" is a four-song collection headlined by the tune, "Funky Forty". It snuck out a few days before Christmas last year--December 20th, to be exact--and without any publicity or industry recognition the
YouTube video has already amassed over 700,000 views. Clearly, the young man is doing something that attracts an audience.
Listen to Arthur Young singing "Funky Forty" on YouTube.
Young didn't appear completely out of the void. Accompanied by southern soul up-and-comer Tony Tatum on the "Funky Forty" choruses, he was soon given the ultimate peer compliment when Rosalyn Candy recorded an "answer" song to "Funky Forty" which, when it first came through my e-mail, was how I first became aware of Young's original.
Listen to Rosalyn Candy singing "Funky Forty Reply".
Musically,
"Funky Forty" is much more than its justifiably-lauded lyrics. It's got a good groove, a solid rhythm track, an easy-going yet memorable melody, and--grounding it all--an earthy, believable vocal. And, on top of that, you get all the funny lyrics about the in's and out's of keeping a forty-dollar whore. Wasn't there a single?--now what was the name of that?--called
"My Sidepiece" with some of the same keep-you-laughing qualities?
Here's how it charted:
************
Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles For. . .
-------FEBRUARY 2020-------
...3. "Funky Forty"------Arthur Young
Bargain-priced sexual favors in the shadowy corners of the chitlin' circuit make for a funny and memorable tune that has already garnered a quarter-million YouTube views.
Listen to Arthur Young singing "Funky Forty" on YouTube.
************
And that was followed by...
************
Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles For. . .
-------APRIL 2020-------
...2. "Stroking"----Arthur Young
Clarence Carter would be proud of this young man's authoritative "Stroking". Young has already brought us the surefire classic "Funky Forty" (See #3, Top 10 Singles February 2020), and just as with that hit single, he has a knack for the right phrase. "I'll be crying in the morning/ I'll be begging in the evening/ But I bet I'll be strokin' tonight." From Arthur Young's Funky Forty EP.
Listen to Arthur Young singing "Stroking" on YouTube.
************
Easy to overlook, because the lyrics of the two tunes are so good, is the fact Young's music is substantial in terms of both composition and production. And when I think of "substantial," I think of
Marvin Sease. Marvin's "everyman" voice (which he used to his advantage) and cunningly accessible production more than made up for Johnny Taylor flash or Ronnie Lovejoy depth. Marvin's sound was consistently round and full, pulling you in, charming the socks off you, humble and humorous, yet always swinging, always pulsing that groove.
Young's artistry is much like that. He sounds like a Sease-kinda every-man, intimate with all the low-life details, the stories of the contemporary "culture" we delight in hearing about, and armed with the intuitive musical tools to bring them off.
Of the remaining two songs on the EP, "Windex Man" is an acceptable but in the end resistible take-off on Betty Wright's "Clean Up Woman," while
"Knock It" is a well-received (75,000 views) but ultimately forgettable tune, well within the long shadows cast by "Stroking" and "Funky Forty".
Bring on
"Catfishing"!
--Daddy B. Nice
Listen to all the tracks from Arthur Young's "Funky Forty" EP on YouTube.
Buy Arthur Young's new Funky Forty EP at Apple.
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--Daddy B. Nice