Album Reviews

John Legend and the Roots

“Wake Up!”

Sony Music

Why we recommend it: “Wake Up” lives up to its title and is indeed a wakeup call concerning a war that seems unlikely to be resolved in the near future.

Recommended track: "Hard Times"

Multiple-Grammy Award winner John Legend has collaborated with the Roots on an album of reinterpretations by artists as diverse as Bill Withers, Ernie Hines and Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes, and the result is nothing short of a no-holds-barred body of work with Legend giving gritty vocal performances amid some very bare-bones solid instrumentation.

At times in danger of bearing the hallmarks of self-indulgence, “Wake Up” lives up to its title and is indeed a wakeup call concerning a war that seems unlikely to be resolved in the near future. Thanks to some restraint in performance and production, it is a highly recommended body of work.

Baby Huey and the Babysitters’ “Hard Times” opens the album, giving the song a strong funk treatment in full Curtis Mayfield-style ― offering a taste of what is to come.

Sometimes the tone seems a little too predictable and tame as tracks stray into soul territory like Baby Huey and the Babysitters’ “Hard Times” and “Wholy Holy” by Marvin Gaye.

But the same cannot be said for upfront vocal and driving funk of Ernie Hines’ “Our Generation.”

Featuring a lineup of guests including Common and Melanie Fiona, Black Thought, Malik Yusef and CL Smooth, there is no shortage of mixing it up with a little rap thrown into a soul number, often with good results.

With obvious political elements especially in choices such as Donny Hathaway’s “Little Ghetto Boy,” Mike James Kirkland’s “Hang on in There” and Bill Withers’ anti-war “I Can’t Write Left Handed’,” this work could have been a little too dark in tone. However, the interpretation by production team Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and James Poyser ensure the feel is upbeat with some understated string arrangements.

Interesting choice is “Humanity (Love the Way It Should Be)” by Prince Lincoln and the Royal Rasses, which is given a reggae spin straight out of the likes of Kingston, Jamaica in the mid-’60s.

A gospel feel that permeates “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” by Billy Taylor is the perfect segue into final track “Shine.”

Three stars out of four.

― John Redmond