He welcomes you with a lemon tea in his hand, a little groggy. Soul singer, Curtis Harding, is struggling to recover from his jet lag. The American was no longer in the habit of traveling. Arrived two days earlier from his city, Atlanta, he gave the day before the interview his first concert in two years. Since the start of the health crisis, the “soulman” had no longer taken the stage. At the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, on December 7, 2021, he then released the big game: drummer, copper, guitarist, bassist and psychedelic glasses on his nose. Back in Europe for a tour, he returns with the same formation, Sunday March 6, at La Cigale in Paris then at La Rodia in Besançon, Tuesday March 22, not sorry to hit the road once more.
Even if, from the first notes of his third album, If Words Were Flowerspublished in November 2021, the “soul vintage” sound remains omnipresent, the guitarist, ex-backing vocalist of Gnarls Barkley, allowed himself a few detours, in particular towards psychedelic rock, fruits, he says, of this period of confinement where he has rediscovered a taste for small things: “I hadn’t had a normal life for yearsexplains the singer, and the confinement allowed me to walk with my dog, to see my family… I know it was hard for many people but, for me, it gave me an idea of what normality might be. I had been touring so much for years that I had lost all sense of reality… The confinement put my feet back on the ground and now I have regained a taste for playing with my friends, rehearsing and giving a concert in Paris. »
Curtis Harding, singer: “Containment brought me back to earth”
More “low tempo” than these previous records, which revisited the energetic soul of the 1960s, If Words Were Flowers contains tracks as soft and folky as With You Where It’s a Wonder : « This album really reflects the environment I was inhe summarizes, it was very quiet in Atlanta during this time. I might ride my bike downtown and not meet anyone on the main avenue, Peachtree Street, for example. No one was working, everyone was at home. From time to time there were meetings in the parks. It was really beautiful, people paid attention to each other, respected everyone’s space. It’s as if we found a little humanity. »
Eventful life
A contrast for him who, as a young worker, the son of a mechanic and a gospel singer, had found himself working in the skyscrapers of Downtown where he typed the criminal records of his fellow citizens. He knew the hectic life of Atlanta, the traffic jams, the rap evenings where, with his group Proseed, he distributed leaflets on behalf of the star label of the megalopolis, LaFace Records, producer then of R’n’B artists, TLC, Toni Braxton, but also rappers from the group OutKast.
You have 40.58% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
