2016 – Tweed Tone Records
By Phillip Smith; May 3, 2016
Give me some great tunes with
a lot of soul and a fistful of funk, and I’ll be perched up in my cat-bird
seat. Spring will be ending soon, and I’ll
be spending more time out on the deck jamming to a super-sized playlist built
around the summer season. Tweed Funk’s latest album, Come Together is surely on my list. It has everything I like, including a smooth
horn section and a retro-Sixties Memphis soul vibe. This Milwaukee six-piece band is composed of lead
singer Joseph “Smokey” Holman, guitarist
JD Optekar, Eric Madunic on keys and bass, drummer Dave Schoepke, saxophonist Andrew
Spadafora, and trumpeter Doug
Woolverton.
“Light Up the Night” is an excellent
high-energy number to kick the album off with.
It really gets the blood pumping, with its ear-catching bassline, and
infectious groove. By the time the fun
and funky instrumental “Who is This” rolls through, I’m looking all around for
my dancing shoes. The same goes with the
sensational “Love Ain’t Easy”. This one
tears the roof off in style and puts an enormous smile on my face with its bodacious
bassline, and dazzling horns.
I just let the music soak in
when I hear “Muse” and “Sweet Music” back to back. Both are bathed in a delicious old-skool Stax soul sound, reminiscent of the Mar-Keys. Optekar
pours it on Steve Cropper-style,
and of course, I can’t help but think of the Memphis Horns when Woolverton
and Spadafora do their thing. Holman’s
silky and tender vocals bring great depth to the somber and beautifully written
“Bullet”. It almost brings tears to my eyes.
Come Together
has everything going for it. Tweed Funk
scores huge on this fantastic album.
