| The Crossing | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | October 30, 2012 | |||
| Studio | Dunham Sound Studio, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 38:43 | |||
| Label | Daptone/Dunham | |||
| Producer | Thomas Brenneck | |||
| Menahan Street Band chronology | ||||
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The Crossing is the second full-length studio album by American rhythm and blues group Menahan Street Band. It has received positive reviews from critics.
According to the review aggregator Metacritic , The Crossing received "generally favorable reviews" based on a weighted average score of 79 out of 100 from 10 critic scores. [3] Editors at AllMusic rated this album 4 out of 5 stars, with critic Fred Thomas writing that this album "expands somewhat on the band's debut, with the group plucking inspiration from a wide spectrum of soul and funk subcategories" and the band "cultivates a rich collection of emotionally complex instrumental soul, with precise musicianship meeting inspired production and a deeply studied obsession with the often sampled and less often acknowledged obscure geniuses of soul music". [1] Len Comaratta of Consequence of Sound scored this album a B, noting the band's non-soul influences and states that a "slightly haunting, lower-timbre" runs through most of the album. [4] In The Irish Times , Jim Carroll gave The Crossing 4 out of 5 stars, characterizing the music: "these tight, moody, sumptuous instrumentals are widescreen, cinematic pace-setters, with detailed, punchy, textured playing that draws you in and allows the drama to unfold". [5] Elias Leight of PopMatters gave this release an 8 out of 10, stating that this work "once again shows their talent at creating tight instrumental funk" with music "buoyed by firm backbeats and highly synchronized horn section". [2]
All songs written by Menahan Street Band.
Menahan Street Band
Additional personnel
A Whole New Thing is the debut album by funk/soul band Sly and the Family Stone, released in 1967 on Epic/CBS Records. The album was released to mixed criticism and failed to make an impact from a commercial standpoint and did not chart. CBS Records executive Clive Davis prevailed upon band leader Sly Stone to create a more commercial album; the result was the album Dance to the Music. Unlike later Sly and the Family Stone albums, A Whole New Thing was recorded live in the studio instead of being overdubbed and featured less of a pop feel than later releases such as Dance to the Music and Stand!. The lead vocals are shared between Sly Stone, Freddie Stone, and Larry Graham; Rose Stone would not join the band until they began work on Dance to the Music.
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Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings were an American funk and soul band signed to Daptone Records. They were part of a revival movement of mid-1960s to mid-1970s style funk and soul music. They released their debut album Dap Dippin' in 2002, the first of seven studio albums. Their 2014 album Give the People What They Want was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. Following Sharon Jones' death in 2016, the band released the posthumous album Soul of a Woman in 2017 and a compilation of cover songs in 2020.
Nicholas Anthony Movshon is a bass guitarist, drummer and songwriter best known for his considerable contributions to the New York funk and soul revival. A frequent contributor to the recorded output of Brooklyn-based labels Daptone Records and Truth & Soul, he has spent the past two decades playing with Charles Bradley, Lee Fields, and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, and as a member of groups including Antibalas, Menahan Street Band, and El Michels Affair. He is also a founding member of The Arcs and has toured with The Black Keys.
"Out of Sight" is a funk song recorded by James Brown in 1964. A twelve-bar blues written by Brown under the pseudonym "Ted Wright", the stuttering, staccato dance rhythms and blasting horn section riffs of its instrumental arrangement were an important evolutionary step in the development of funk music.
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Menahan Street Band is an American, Brooklyn, New York–based instrumental band formed in 2007, that plays funk and soul music. The band features musicians from Antibalas, El Michels Affair, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and the Budos Band. The group was founded by Thomas Brenneck while living in an apartment on Menahan Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. Their debut album, Make the Road by Walking, was released in 2008 on Dunham, a sublabel of Daptone Records and was followed by The Crossing in 2012.
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"Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight" is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter James Taylor, from his 1972 album One Man Dog. The song has been included on three of Taylor's greatest-hits collection albums: Greatest Hits (1976), Classic Songs (1987) and The Best of James Taylor (2003). Taylor re-recorded the song for the 2001 Michael Brecker album Nearness of You: The Ballad Book; this rendition won Taylor the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 2002.
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Homer Steinweiss is an American drummer, songwriter, and producer known as a prominent drummer in the New York soul revival scene. He is a founding member and drummer of groups including Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Lee Fields & The Expressions, Hardly Knew Ya, El Michels Affair, and Dan Auerbach's The Arcs, among many others. He leads the Brooklyn folk soul band Holy Hive with Paul Spring. A popular session musician as part of The Dap-Kings and in his own right, he is perhaps best known for his work with Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse, with whom he recorded the 2006 album Back to Black.
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El Michels Affair is an American cinematic soul group led by musician and producer Leon Michels. Based in New York, the group is noted for its wide-ranging influences, analog production approach, and hip hop collaborations. The group released its first single in August 2002, and its debut album Sounding Out the City in 2005. After touring behind Raekwon and other Wu-Tang Clan members, the group recorded the popular cover album Enter the 37th Chamber in 2009. After releasing other tribute albums in the following decade, El Michels Affair returned with the original albums Adult Themes in 2020 and Yeti Season in 2021. Since then, the group has released collaborative projects with Freddie Gibbs & Madlib, Liam Bailey, and Black Thought, including 2023's Glorious Game.
Leon Marcus Michels is an American music producer, record executive, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known as the leader of the eclectic soul project El Michels Affair and co-founder of Truth & Soul Records and Big Crown Records. He is a founding member of soul and funk bands Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Menahan Street Band, and Lee Fields & The Expressions, and has played with Charles Bradley as well as Wu-Tang Clan. A frequent collaborator of Dan Auerbach, Michels was a touring member of The Black Keys and co-founded The Arcs. As a producer, Michels has produced records for artists such as Lee Fields, Norah Jones, Clairo, Chicano Batman, Nicole Wray, and Hanni El Khatib.
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The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band is the third full-length studio album by American rhythm and blues group Menahan Street Band.
