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Reviews
“That’s The Way We Do It In Detroit,” (a/k/a “The Auto Trade”) Stewart Francke (www.stewartfrancke.com) – A statement of faith and purpose from a great music man in a great music community, as well as a somber meditation upon the destruction of Francke’s home, his town, his life, his family’s stability, his country’s prosperity. One of the first great songs from the New Depression. (Don’t miss the companion piece, a gorgeous white soul rendition of the Beatles’ “And Your Bird Can Sing.”)
-- Rock & Rap Confidential
Motor City Serenade
All Music Guide -- Thom Jurek on MC Serenade
Stewart Francke's Motor City Serenade is a daring exercise in musical anthropology, cultural license, and Detroit aesthetic savvy. Francke has been on the scene a long time, regarded highly in Detroit, but basically underappreciated elsewhere. That may change with the issue of this album, released by Great Britain's Zane label - the crew that released great titles by Delaney Bramlett, Ellis Hooks, and Eddie Hinton. Motor City Serenade pulls out all the stops creatively. There are layers of singers - including the gospel group Commissioned, Barb Payton, and living rock legend Mitch Ryder - elegant yet edgy strings, spiky, taut horns, funky keyboards, and popping guitars in a mix so utterly open and ringing, it saturates the listening space in a swirl of color, texture, and grit.
But Motown isn't the only sound at work in Francke's mix; there is also the romantic sophistication of Brian Wilson and the wild abandon of Jack Nitszche. The title track is a lullaby to Detroit, romantically name-dropping some of its heroes, from Marvin Gaye and Nolan Strong to techno's "holy trinity" ( Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson) - all of it fueled by Motown's Funk Brothers backing Francke. His singing voice has grown deeper and wider over the years. It contains a kind of reckless maturity and nuance that is the badge of experience and beneath-the-skin expression. He's doesn't worry about anything but getting the song to be true to itself as song. He's got the necessary soul chops, but he is also a fine rock singer - when he and Ryder cut loose in "Upon Seeing Simone," over a rollicking horn section, they send chills down the spine. But sonics and vocal prowess only tell part of the story; Francke's true gift in his ability to write words so utterly and poetically impure, and melodies that project them from the mix to the consciousness of the listener.
For Francke, backyards, street cruising, the triumphs and tragedies of family, and fleeting love are all wrapped in the same bundle, all cards in the same slippery deck. He can find the divine in the heat of a kiss, or the supernatural in glare of city lights on wet pavement; he can discern the measure of morality in a broken heart. Tracks like "American Twilight" lament the craziness of the nation in the beating of a man on a suburban roadway. "Deep Soul Kiss" expresses the need to continue in relationship in the midst of struggle, all the while acknowledging the power of eros to transcend. Yeah, this is real people's poetry: it carries within it the rough mystery of the urban street and the mundane magic of suburban epiphanies and doubts. And it's as romantic as a muggy summer night. This is music that's more interested in asking pertinent questions than looking for quick-fix answers. And in its quest there lies unintentional moral instruction as in the utterly moving slip hop of "You Better Get to Know Your Broken Heart."
Motor City Serenade is a celebration of contradictions: the beauty found in the ruins and history of a city that has lost its mooring but not its will to survive, the tense experiences of the people who inhabit its surroundings, the anxiousness found in searching for pearls of wisdom and excitement in the grind of everyday life in what was once the city that articulated the American Dream. And Francke has brought them all to bear here, allowing the voices of doubt, faith, regret, despair, temerity, and desire to speak for themselves in a truly exciting set of 13 songs that is as tough, tender, and ass-shaking as the city it reflects.
Detroit Free Press Review
Francke's full of Motown love, funk
May 29, 2005
The centerpiece of this committed collection of 13 tracks is the title song, a love letter to the hardworking, music-loving city that Stewart Francke so clearly adores. A virtual compendium of Detroit references -- think Stroh's, Mitch Ryder, "the techno holy trio," Stoney & Wojo, Soupy Sales -- "Motor City Serenade" is built on a bass line and string arrangements that practically scream Hitsville, appropriate considering that members of Motown's fabled backing band, the Funk Brothers, played on the track.
Actually, the entire album is almost bursting with Motown and other '70s R&B and soul cues, particularly the string and horn charts and Francke's voice, which has taken on a slightly raspier and earthier tone as he's aged. All this might be a surprise to those who remember the longtime musician's earlier material, which was in a more traditional pop-folk vein. But the transition that began with 2001's "What We Talk Of ... When We Talk" and was roughly concurrent with a life-threatening bout with cancer feels complete -- and legitimate -- as Francke exhibits a wiser, sometimes weary, but ultimately heart-a-bursting persona. He's so obviously genuine about the material that he isn't afraid of engaging in a little foreplay with sentimentality, though he smartly stops short of going schmaltz all the way.
Among the especially effective (and affecting) tracks are "Skin to Skin," which has a playful, tender sensuality; the pleading "God I Need an Answer"; "Upon Seeing Simone," a humorous tale of a man who's sweating it when a certain someone shows up unexpectedly; and "American Twilights," which conjures the vibe of "What's Going On"-era Marvin Gaye -- no easy trick and indicative of the skillful touch that Francke and his players bring throughout the disc.
By Steve Byrne, Free Press staff writer
UK The Independent Review
Stewart Francke ****
Motor City Serenade, ZANE RECORDS
01 April 2005
Like Remy Shand, Stewart Francke is a blue-eyed soul boy who has steeped himself so thoroughly in the details of his chosen bsession -
in his case, the classic soul sound of his hometown Detroit - that his best work could almost pass as authentic. It helps if you have access to Motown's old Funk Brothers studio crew, as Francke does on a couple of cuts here, notably the title track. But there's a generosity of spirit and articulate social conscience in operation that sit as well on his shoulders as they did on those of Marvin, Curtis and Stevie, particularly on the protest-soul numbers such as "American Twilights" and the three-part suite that concludes the album, starting with "From Where Shall Comfort Come": "Let the four winds blow from the White House to the slum/ Good times are vanity when they're only good to some," sings Francke. Apart from the Southside Johnny-style R&B of "Upon Seeing Simone" and the melancholy "Better Get to Know Your Broken Heart", the album marshalls the requisite clavinet, electric piano, organ, strings, horns and wah-wah guitar with consummate skill, building up a meticulous Motown repro sound best exemplified by "Motor City Serenade" itself, which celebrates Detroit's multi-faceted musical heritage.
By Andy Gill
London Times, UK
April 02, 2005
Soul
Stewart Francke ****
Motor City Serenade (Zane)
This singer-songwriter from Detroit stands out from the crowd because of his soul-hardened voice and collection of thoughtful, user-friendly songs. His debt to his home town is revealed in the title track, which pays tribute to a raft of Motor City artists (see feature, page 18), including Marvin Gaye and Nolan Strong. And just to reinforce the feeling, he is backed on that track by Motown’s original Funk Brothers, including Jack Ashford and Joe Hunter. Another Detroit legend, Mitch Ryder, also lends vocal support on the 13 numbers that vary from the deft late-night stylings of Deep Soul Kiss to the altogether more funky Prowlin’. An artist who has battled leukaemia, Francke has a cutting edge that has already made his name in his native Michigan. With luck, he could do the same over here.
By John Clarke
“MOTOR CITY SERENADE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT BLUE EYED SOUL RECORD IN A MUSICAL GENERATION.... standing courageously at the intersection of rock and soul music, influenced equally by Marvin Gaye and Brian Wilson, Stewart Francke possesses all the tools: A sweet voice, a vision that’s grand without being grandiose and an undying love of sound for its own sake, along with an equally passionate engagement with everyday life and the people who live it. This music isn’t classic anything only because, like every real artist, Francke takes the world as he knows it and moves on his own course. " -- Dave Marsh
Swimming in Mercury
All the way at the other end of the brainless high schooler version of rock are the new records by Paul McCartney and Stewart Francke.
A year ago, Francke was diagnosed with leukemia-a most treatable form of the disease but life- threatening nevertheless. The Detroit-based writer-singer had already released three albums of self-produced music; one song, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," made it to the airwaves via Melrose Place. All of that music is dense and introspective, but it doesn't begin to compare with his new Swimming in Mercury (Blue Boundary, www.blueboundary.com). Here, Francke uses his Beach Boys-derived love of lush harmonies and elaborate instrumental arrangements to paint a portrait of a life lived on the narrow line between hope and despair.
The most extraordinary track, "Letter from Ten Green," contains lines originally written as a letter to his young children, to be read in the event of his death. "Keep Your Faith, Darling," a song about his relationship with his wife during this period, is just as remarkable. And at the end, having survived, he is granted "Radio Road," perhaps the most beautiful melody he's ever dug up. From there, he cuts loose with a terrific take on the Beach Boys' "You're So Good to Me," addressed less to a girl than to life itself. High school kids don't often offer such resonance.
-Dave Marsh, Playboy March 2000
"As always, Stewart Francke's passion and raw singing strength are evident on Swimming In Mercury. Like all the best songwriters, Stewart writes from the heart and sings from it as well. The power of his up tempo tunes and the plaintive emotion of his ballads make for that rarest of musical accomplishments: a songwriter who can rock!"
-Mitch Albom, Columnist, Detroit Free Press,
Best Selling author of "Tuesdays With Morrie"
On "Keep Your Faith, Darling," the opening track on Stewart Francke's brilliant fifth album, the singer-songwriter sets the musical and thematic tone for the 10 songs to follow.
Cradled in vocal harmony, riding a delectable melody, Francke recalls the mantra his wife whispered to him as he lay in the hospital last year recovering from leukemia: "Keep Your Faith, Darling/Everything's gonna be all right tonight." Swimming In Mercury is easily Francke's best effort to date, the most potent expression of his longtime faith in hope and the human spirit.
The album conveys the humility, triumph and enlightenment that accompanied his cancer battle, but is imbued with a poetic grace that keeps it from reading like just another mushy tale about dignity and hardship. Taking its sonic cues from 1998’s SunflowerSoulSerenade at times-with its spiritual overtones and adept pop grooming-it comes off like some great lost George Harrison LP from 1971. Elsewhere-on songs like "Fathers and Sons" and "The Branch Will Not Break” - Francke recalls the plaintive earthiness of his earlier work. Keeping the faith, indeed.
-Brian McCollum- Detroit Free Press pop music critic.
What We Talk Of .. When We Talk
Stewart Francke's What We Talk Of .. When We Talk is the most important blue-eyed soul record in a musical generation...
... the sound scape is based on his reading of Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, and Gamble/Huff records that defined the border between soul and funk, right down to the wah-wah guitars. The topic is our culture's most enduring: What happens when fear is steeped in racism. With help from the excellent gospel group Commissioned, Francke finds a voice that lets him ask the right questions...
What We Talk Of .. doesn't toy with amateur deep soul. Instead, it borrows quite explicitly from the soul of the early '70s: the perfect string confections of Barry White, the sophisticated horn, rhythm and vocal arrangements of Stevie Wonder and Maurice White. It's also explicit in attempting to recapture that music's social and political atmosphere. As Craig Werner writes in the liner notes, this music comes from a place "where you catch glimpses of what the seventies might have become if we'd lived up to their long-forgotten promise." Francke is not indulging nostalgia for a polyester past; he's using abandoned musical resources to make a statement about the world we live in right now. He casts his own challenge - "All this wasting of time / when we should be writing our story / we're perfecting our lines... when we could be touching the glory." He meets it, too.
Funny thing is, Francke on his previous five albums made some of the blondest music I know. His apparent influences were the Beatles and Beach Boys, Springsteen and Bob Seger. His occasional work with the greatest of all blue-eyed soulman, Mitch Ryder seemed just a Detroit boy's way of honoring roots.
Somehow there's nothing affected about what Francke does on What We Talk Of.. Among his collaborators is the fine gospel-hip-hop group, Commissioned, and his ability to sing with them is startling. This album's best song, "Skin To Skin," is a duet with Barb Payton that takes us to the heart of the matter-race mixing, at all levels.
What We Talk Of.. itself is a metaphor for the missing cross-cultural dialogue, about pain and glory and how black and white people each experience them, that doesn't exist -- I'd say, the dialogue we lost. Except in these Ashcroft days, it's not real clear we ever had it. That's not fair though. We have had it. It animated the singing of the civil rights movement and, in a less conscious way, of early rock'n'roll. It thunders in the background of Righteous Brothers and Young Rascals records. It existed in the success of Jimi Hendrix, of Ryder, and of bands you've half-forgotten or never knew: Earth Wind and Fire, Mother's Finest, Living Colour. In a perverse way, it's part of the collaboration between Dr. Dre and Eminem right now.
If you think that's off-the-wall, consider this: Stewart Francke's eyes snapped open on how to deal with race and music because he was dealing with cancer. A bone marrow transplant saved his life, so Francke established a foundation to offer help to others who needed transplants. What he learned was that African and Asian Americans have twice as much difficulty in finding a bone marrow match, because there are so few black people in the donor pool. So he began working with Detroit's African-American community to change that. From that, came an association with black musicians so intense that the blondest musician I know has now made this intensely soulful record.
What Francke did is a long way from easy. You can't get to the place he reaches on What We Talk Of.. without paying a great price. Still, it's a lot cheaper than the one you pay for not going there.
- Dave Marsh
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