James River (album)

James River is the working title of R&B and neo soul musician D'Angelo's third studio album, although the album remains Untitled.^[1] The album is widely considered one of the most anticipated in popular music, due to the critical acclaim of previous album Voodoo, and D'Angelo's lengthy 'sabbatical' period that has followed. The album has been plagued by delays in recording and release, owing mainly to D'Angelo's personal and legal troubles.

Background

Towards the end of the Voodoo tour in 2000, D'Angelo's issues towards performing worsened.^[2] He became more conscious of and uncomfortable with his status as something of a sex symbol, and after the tour concluded he disappeared from the public eye.

Work for the album started in either 2001 or 2002, with D'Angelo recording alone. In the years that followed, D'Angelo's personal problems worsened, descending to drug and alcohol addiction. In January 2005 he was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. Various mugshots began circulating around the time, showing the singer looking overweight and unhealthy, in stark contrast to the muscular D'Angelo seen in promotion for Voodoo.^[3] In September 2005, a week after being sentenced on the drug charges, he was involved in a car accident, and was rumoured to be critically injured. However, a week after the crash a statement was issued by D'Angelo's attorney stating that he was fine and that

"He is anxious to finish the recording of his soul masterpiece that the world has patiently awaited." ^[4]

—L. Londell McMillan - 2005

No more was revealed on the new album until 2007, when Questlove leaked an unfinished track to Australian radio. Entitled 'Really Love', the track is an acoustic flavoured jam with a laid back swing feel. The leak apparently soured relations between the two.

In 2009, D'Angelo's new manager Lindsay Guion, revealed plans for a new album, including collaborations with artists including Prince, Kanye West, Busta Rhymes, and John Mayer, and a summer tour.^[5]

"He's able to smile again and he's ready to connect [with fans],He's coming back. And he looks great, by the way."

—Lindsay Guion, D'Angelo's manager - 2008

As with the previous year, no tour or album materialized.

In early February 2010, a 'new' track called '1000 deaths' appeared on the internet, but was swiftly removed due to a copyright claim by Michael Archer, D'Angelo's real name. The song seemed unfinished, and it is unclear how recent the material actually is, as the same song was mentioned in the same interview (see above) with Russell Elevado, in 2007.

Around the same time, an article began to circulate on the internet, which seemed to be an apparent review of 'James River', with detailed descriptions of individual songs, track listing, and segments of lyrics.^[6] This caused much discussion regarding the authenticity of the article, or whether it was an elaborate hoax.

In January 2011, Russell Elevado updated the status of the album development on his website and stated that "Pino Palladino and James Gadson have joined D'Angelo [...] in New York City to finish cutting tracks for the upcoming album (yes, "THE" upcoming album!). We are officially making our way to finishing this record! I don't need to tell everyone that this will be an amazing album. D'Angelo fans will be extremely happy to know, the wait will be over soon and it will surely be a future classic"

Russell Elevado has recently updated the status of the album again on his own website. "Since my last post i have continued sessions with D'Angelo. we've just finished up 5 months of recording. D has been doing vocals and guitars and we've had Pino Palladino back in for some more bass tracks. Also ?uestlove came in to jam with D and Pino. they've finally reunited after 7 or 8 years (lost track how long really). we're taking a few months break while i take care of some other projects that have been on the back burner." ^[7]

In an interview published December 1, 2011, Questlove told pitchfork.com, "The album is pretty much 97% done. He's just finishing his lyrics now. He needs somebody to smack him and take the record away from him because it's pretty much finished...For all intents and purposes, this album is the black version of [The Beach Boys'] Smile-- at best, it will go down in the Smile/There's a Riot Goin' On/Miles Davis' On the Corner category. That's what I'm hoping for. There's stuff on there I was amazed at, like new music patches [keyboard sounds] I've never heard before. I'd ask him, "What kind of keyboard is that?" I thought it was some old vintage thing. But he builds his own patches. One song we worked on called "Charade" has this trombone patch that he re-EQ'd and then put through an envelope filter and then added a vibraphone noise on top and made a whole new patch out of it. He's the only person I know that takes a Herbie Hancock approach, or Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff—the two musician/engineers who programmed all of Stevie Wonder's genius-period stuff—approach. That's the last time I ever heard of somebody building patches. We'll see if history is kind to it."^[8]

References