If Little Willie G. sounds familiar, you probably grew up in the
\n’60s with his band Thee Midniters and their cover of “Land Of 1,000
\nDances.” But times changed, and Willie Garcia went from being
\nconsidered one of the best Chicano singers from east Los Angeles to
\na man who faced off against his own personal demons and came out on
\ntop. Now an ordained minister, Garcia makes a return to the world
\nof secular music (with maybe just a smidgen of religion thrown in
\nfrom time to time) with
\nMake Up For The Lost Time<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The title of this disc is rather strange, as you can hear the
\nroots of Garcia’s musical experience — ’60s r&b\/soul — in
\nalmost every track on this disc. Garcia tries to make the music
\nfrom his time sound relevant for 2000 — and while the music does
\nhave a crispness to it, you can’t help but think you’ve heard this
\nall before.<\/p>\n
Some of it, of course, you have. There is the Bobby
\nWomack\/Harold Payne-penned track “A World Where No One Cries” that
\ncloses the album. There’s the Aretha Franklin\/Ted White composition
\n“Don’t Let Me Lose This Dream” that Garcia nimbly puts his own
\nsignature on.<\/p>\n
But what’s interesting is that the song closest to Garcia’s
\nroots, “Cultura,” is the best work on
\nMake Up For The Lost Time<\/i>. Performed in Spanish, it truly
\nallows Garcia to revel in his Latino heritage, and the song exudes
\nan absolute joy that can only be experienced by listening to
\nit.<\/p>\n
That’s not to say that other tracks on this disc aren’t worthy
\nof your attention. The album opener “Open The Door To Your Heart”
\nkicks things off well, raising the spirits of the listener and
\ngetting them excited about the music that is to come.
\nLikewise,tracks like “Come Back Baby” and “Here I Go Again” have
\nsimilar effects.<\/p>\n
Where
\nMake Up For The Lost Time<\/i> eventually stumbles is in two
\nareas. First, while there is an attempt by Garcia to bring his
\nsound into the new millenium, tracks like “It’ll Never Be Over For
\nMe,” “To Be With You” and the title track all sound like they could
\nhave been lifted from any r&b\/soul album from the late
\n’60s-early ’70s. They all have a very Bobby Womack-like sound to
\nthem – and I was hoping for a little more originality.<\/p>\n
Second, while this is supposed to be a secular album, Garcia
\nmakes sure he works a little religion into the mix, though he
\nwisely refrains from turning tracks like “Joy In The Palace,” “(I
\nWanna) Testify” and “These Hands (Small But Mighty)” into pure
\ngospel. There’s enough lyrical ambiguity where you could think
\nGarcia was singing about the love of a woman. (In all fairness,
\nonly “Joy In The Palace” was even co-written by Garcia.)<\/p>\n
\nMake Up For The Lost Time<\/i> might be welcomed by some people,
\nbut it’s kind of strange that, for the bulk of the disc, Garcia
\ntries to live up to the title by musically picking up where he left
\noff. In retrospect, this might not have been the best move he could
\nhave made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6316],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-36596","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-little-willie-g","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36596"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36596"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}