I have a handful of favorite artists whose new releases I pick up sight unseen (or unheard) because I know I’ll love (and be incredibly inspired by) whatever they come up with: John Prine (my favorite storyteller, BTW), chooses to not dabble with perfection and sticks to a formula. (We should all be so lucky to have that formula.) Others, like John Hiatt, bounce between a folkier acoustic feel on one record, and a full band on the next. Still others continue to evolve on each record, taking a bit of what worked on the last and building on it in the new one. The bay area’s Michael Franti comes to mind on this last count.
Franti started out as a rap/hip-hop artist, fronting the band Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. He later chose to forgo sampling and formed the band Spearhead. I first heard Franti at the Strawberry Music Festival a few years back when he was touring with Spearhead for “Yell Fire”, a political, yet optimistic collection of songs he wrote after visiting Iraq and Israel. He followed that with “All Rebel Rockers”, a still very danceable, at times political, yet more reggae influenced-piece. (Much of it was recorded in Jamaica.)
His latest record, “The Sound of Sunshine”, is the perfect summer record…released just in time for fall. Then again, we do get our best summer weather here on the west coast in the fall, so it’s sort of appropriate.
I’d call the new one, “The Sound of Sunshine”, his “happy fun record”. I suspect that approach was intentional, in light of last year’s health issues: Franti cancelled a major tour in ’09 his appendix burst. He survived, and his time in the hospital, I’m sure made him pine for healthier, happier days. And that’s just what we get on the new record. We saw Franti at Berkeley Greek Theater early last summer. It was the beginning of his current tour, before the record was released , and we were privy to hear most of the record played live, along with the stories of how many of the songs he wrote while he was recovering from surgery.
Franti continues to write great songs, melding, rap, rock, reggae, with acoustic diversions into folk, and a very unifying message – the guy makes amazing records, but you must see him live to fully appreciate the whole message.
The title track, which opens the record, is a bouncy ode to summer. That and the CD’s, second track, “Shake It” (with it’s anthemic “you’re perfect just the way you are”) have been getting lots of airplay all summer. The rest of the record holds up just as well, full of catchy hooks and singalong choruses that make it very difficult to sit still in an office chair while writing a CD review.