INTERVIEW: Soul Man MAXWELL Stages Ambitious Return (Straight.com)
Neo-soul man Maxwell stages ambitious return
By Sarah Rowland
It’s been eight years since Maxwell put out an album. But now he’s back with a three-disc set which will be released over a span of three years. He’s about to unleash his first record, BLACKsummers’night, which will be followed by blackSUMMERS’night (2010) and blacksummers’NIGHT (2011). It’s a daunting undertaking, and not one that came about because he accumulated a backlog of songs during his extended hiatus.
“I just wanted to do something ambitious,” says the New York R&B singer, calling from Manhattan. “I’ve done the single-album-release thing before.”
And he did so with much success. Often credited for playing a key role in bringing neo-soul to the top-40 masses, the Grammy-nominated singer pumped out several hits in the mid-to-late ’90s, including that sweet piece of bedroom boogie “Sumthin’ Sumthin’ ”. But for his own personal growth, he voluntarily stepped out of the limelight after his 2001 release, Now.
“I don’t think it’s healthy to be the toast of the town for too long,” he says. “I think it should happen in intervals. It’s good for the spirit and the humility to find out it’s not all about you—there’s a force that powers through you. So yeah, I’m grateful for the time off.”
BLACKsummers’night explores the darker side of soul music and features the hot single “Pretty Wings”, a bittersweet ballad about meeting the right person at the wrong time—something Maxwell knows all about firsthand.
“That’s why I wrote the song—no bullshit at all,” he says, recalling his doomed relationship with an unnamed celebrity who was at the height of her career when they were trying to make it work. “It was like, ‘Damn, I could just marry this girl. I could literally just have kids and be good and never need to see another woman ever again.’ I really felt that feeling—and then to find out it wasn’t reciprocated, not because it wasn’t felt, but because the timing wasn’t right.”
Like most of Maxwell’s previous efforts, the sad but sensual “Pretty Wings” is the perfect soundtrack for a little urban-contemporary lovemaking.
“I try to be the candle in the room—a little incense or something that will go with romance,” the singer says, before pointing out that not every track on this first installment is about romantic monogamy. “Some of my topics are not so positive. There’s a sad song called ‘Cold’—it’s about a very frozen woman with no emotion. So the subject matter doesn’t always add up to the most romantic [song], but yeah, generally I love to make music that people will want to make love to.”
If you want to hear his most seductive copulation compilation, you’ll have to wait till the release of blacksummers’NIGHT.
“The third album is just about making love—that ballad music and that dying art of the slow jam,” says Maxwell with a laugh. “The slow jam kind of died, didn’t it? Remember when the slow jam was cool?”
Sure do. And if there’s one man to bring it back into R&B, it’s Maxwell.
Source Straight.com
This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 6:09 am and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Star July 23rd, 2010 at 6:26 am
Maxwell is one of the most CHARMING MEN on EARTH!- A “REAL MAN!”
P.S. THANK YOU GOD!
