As a South Carolina native, it is always a special pleasure to hear about artists who have walked the same sidewalks as myself, and whose voices have bounced around the same walls of the same cafes and pubs. When a friend mentioned Mel Washington to me, I jotted down the name, and it almost got lost in the free-for-all melee of my to-do list. A little while later, I decided to take a quick look video, between lesson planning and studying. Thirty seconds in, it became clear the rest of the list would have to wait.
In this four minutes, Mel Washington captured a part of music that is regrettably lacking nowadays: soul. It is one thing to be able to hit the right notes, let a few guitar chords ring and entertain an audience. It is quite another thing to silence the crowd and make them grateful to be able to witness something so raw and real.
Early in 2013, Washington released “Houses”. The first track was Whiskey Bent, which I immediately recognized from the video; but I was hesitant to push play. He had proven his live vocal prowess, but many a song gets lost in translation from stage to MP3. This song, (heck, this entire album), is not among those.
Whiskey Bent is amplified, not simply added to. What was put into the mix was more like steroids directly to the muscle of the track, rather than armor built around it. The layered harmonies of the outro still emit the raw emotion of his voice, without losing any of the grit.
Many of the songs on the album serve as odes to the beauty of the acoustic guitar, and make great use of its natural nuances and timbres. While in many songs nowadays it is routinely lost in a mix or limited to a supporting role, for Washington, songs like I Need Your Love place it front and center, with the layered, rhythmic plucking sitting boldly atop a synthetic drum. And as simple as the lyrics read, they carry all the power of a sonnet when his soulful voice pleads over the mix:
“Won’t you share with me all of your ins and outs/ hold none of them back, fill up
this whole damn house/ You give me your trust, but I need your love”
This is by no means to say the lyrics are simplistic. Mel Washington illustrates the lyrical wisdom of being able to unpack an incredibly complex idea, but then eliminate whatever will distract from the root of the message. Take for instance Alyx’s Song:
“You called it a lie/ when she said she died/ on the front lawn/ You thought she was weak/ you thought you were sweet/ on the porch swing/ But where goes the soul of a life that’s on hold?/ No, you don’t know a thing about love/ She put her faith in a love that won’t change”
“Houses” is a unique mix of soul and country inspirations; “neo-soul”. Songs like Caroline, West Virginia and On the Way point to the ideas of roots and home, which play a big role throughout the album. Whiskey Bent has even been recognized by regional magazines as one of the top 20 songs out of South Carolina.
I could go on about his impressive falsetto in We’ve Been Driving or the incredible emotion of Woe is Me, but if a picture is worth a thousand words, then this video is worth a whole volume.
His new Christmas release, as well as “Houses”, is available here: melwashington.bandcamp.com/, www.melwashington.com, www.facebook.com/melwashingtonmusic
Adam Palmer is half of the awesome indie pop duo The Last City, that got featured in Flowers In A Gun some time ago. Check out the article about them here.
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