Donny Hathaway

Donny Hathaway is one of the most important black performers to emerge in recent years.
Important in the sense that Isaac Hayes, Sly Stone, Funkadelic/Parliament or the Last Poets
are important: influential (for better or worse), far-ranging and possessed of a unique, new
style. Hathaway had already completed brilliant work as producer, arranger, composer,
musician (choose one or any combination of the above) with Roberta Flack, Jerr... More >

Jerry Wexler and Atlantic, who would seem to know more about this sort of thing than I do, are pushing this refugee from the production booth as the Man Who Will Revitalize Soul Music. Could be, as I say, but if having soul means digging on all this supper-club melodrama and homogenized jazz then I'm content to be sterile, square, and white. Yeah yeah yeah. (Grade: D-)