Jimmy Needham

When you’re looking for something bluesy, with a dose of funk on the side, one of the places you check out would be Texas. Well, here comes a blue-eyed soul man from Texas, by the name of Jimmy Needham. Not Without Love is a decidedly Christian album which has, for the most part, escaped the ‘Nashville syndrome’ to emerge un-tainted by the homogenization process that seems to render so many CCM recordings safe, but lacking in musical flavor. On this project we have songs written out of the attempt and failure to live out the idealized Christian life, and what the artist discovered in the process.

On a conscious or sub-conscious level, Needham owes a lot, stylistically, to Johnny Lang and Jon Gibson. Lang is a young blues-guitar prodigy who happens to sing in an intense, soulful style, combining blues riffs with pop and funk. Gibson was one of the first white soul singers, who started surprising audiences decades back, in the much earlier days of ‘Christian’ pop music, with his intense street-inspired performances (he was known as ‘The Holy Ghost Boy,’ when he used to perform with the pre-fame M.C. Hammer)! On Not Without Love, Needham comes off primarily as a vocalist, and it’s definitely in the spirit of these two performers (and, of course, Stevie Wonder, who somewhere down the line influenced Lang and Gibson) that he delivers a very human, soulful sound, accompanied by a fine group of musicians that manage to keep things warm and accessible. Refreshingly, we have real drums, keyboard, organ, bass and Needham’s guitar on this project, keeping it real.

Needham’s skills as a songwriter, singer and guitarist are much in evidence all over the 12 tracks. Having written or co-written virtually every song on Not Without Love, Needham, and producer Will Hunt, give us an album where the songs are the real stars. A fine guitar player, Needham plays his acoustic tastefully, with a good, funky feel. The vocals are passionate and soulful, and Needham avoids the senseless vocal riffing done solely for riffing’s sake. The studio band was Jimmy, along with Josh Moore on keyboards, Jacob Schrodt on drums (doing a really excellent old-school job), Will Hunt on percussion, Todd Cromwell on bass, and Taylor Johnson turning in some excellent electric guitar parts and some tasteful, short solos that left me wanting more.

If there’s an over-all lyrical theme to this collection of songs, it’s freedom from the tyranny of performance-oriented Christianity. While the words to the songs might not exactly be poetry, they’re far from the typical fast-food variety that we sometimes find on many mainstream projects designed for easy digestion – there’s much truth in Needham’s lyrics and much of it will ring true to many listeners. “I thought I’d win them all with words / I’d say a smooth little line to win the room every time / And they’d be moved by what they heard / My tongue as empty as my heart / it’s not enough to play the part,” he sings on “Come Around,” the album’s opening song. There are several confessional moments on this project, where Needham expresses his/our inability to produce an acceptable heart-attitude outside of God’s provision.

Not every song is a spiritual heart-cry: there are two love songs on Not Without Love - “Firefly” being a lighthearted, bouncy tune with refreshingly unguarded lyrics. There are some jazzy moments, a taste of blues, good playing, good singing, and thoughtful lyrics on this collection of pop songs. In a bold and effective move, the last track is a spoken beat-poetry/rap/prayer; full of passion, unexpectedly in-your-face, it becomes a memorable and unsettlingly unique moment. There might be a couple of tracks that begin to slip into CCM formula but, for the most part, Jimmy’s got the goods if you need ’em.

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