Happy 15th Anniversary to Mayer Hawthorne’s debut album A Strange Arrangement, originally released September 8, 2009.
The “Retro Soul” scene has been thriving for a little over a quarter century. Many labels and artists, both independent and mainstream, have produced hundreds of albums that explicitly draw their sound from material recorded during the mid to late 1960s and 1970s. Some of these artists from around the globe have dabbled in this approach, while others have centered their musical identities around it.
When it comes to “Blue-eyed” retro soul, two artists have stood at the head of the pack. One is Amy Winehouse, the gone-much-too-early songstress. The other is Andrew Mayer Cohen a.k.a. Mayer Hawthorne. As a singer, Hawthorne released his debut A Strange Arrangement 15 years ago. It’s an album that’s a little rough around the edges, but evokes the spirit of the music of artists from Motown, Curtom, and Hi Records.
The Ann Arbor native had a long and decorated musical history before he ever began recording music as Mayer Hawthorne. Under the moniker DJ Haircut, he was a member of the straight-ahead hip-hop crew Athletic Mic League as well as the trio Now On, both of which released incredibly strong material. By the mid to late 2000s, Haircut had moved to Los Angeles to continue to ply his trade. While at a party, he met Chris Manak a.k.a. Peanut Butter Wolf, owner and mastermind behind Stones Throw Records, and looked to make a connection to the visionary.
Haircut has said that he was interested in creating his own retro styled music with purposes of sampling, since sample clearances were becoming cost prohibitive. He’s also said that PB Wolf encouraged him to record more soul material, since he didn’t believe that these beats were conducive to be rapped to. So he adopted the alter ego of Mayer Hawthorne, combining his middle name with the street that he lived on while growing up.
Hawthorne started by recording the 12” for “Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out,” released on Stones Throw on translucent red vinyl in the shape of a heart. He followed it up with A Strange Arrangement, a full length love letter to the type of soul music that he was raised listening to. Though he’d never received any formal training as a vocalist, Hawthorne has gotten a lot of mileage out of his modified falsetto, which evokes the music of his idols, which include Smokey Robinson and Curtis Mayfield, among others.
Much of A Strange Arrangement is a one-person operation. The particulars of who plays which instruments and what is sampled are never really clear, but by most indications, Hawthorne sings, plays many of the instruments, and engineers the project. The majority of the album is made up of original material. The only cover is a note-for-note recreation of The New Holidays’ “Maybe So, Maybe No,” with only him singing vocals, rather than a trio. Otherwise, he honors the legacies of his idols with new material.
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“Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out” certainly reflects the type of vibe that Hawthorne seeks to create throughout A Strange Arrangement, and owes the most to the compositions of Mr. Robinson. While his lover is “hearing wedding bells,” he tries to extract himself from the relationship, attempting to let her down easy, to mixed success. Musically, Hawthorne recreates the drum track to Lee Dorsey’s “Get Out My Life Woman,” and adds in subtle keys and occasional guitar licks.
Compositions like “Your Easy Lovin’ Ain’t Pleasin’ Nothin’” and “Let Me Know” also directly channel the Motown Sound. The backdrop to the former sounds like it could have been lifted by the Funk Brothers’ sessions for The Supremes, with Hawthorne basking in the beauty and presence of the object of his desire as she struts down the street. “Let Me Know” suggests Marvin Gaye’s dapper early 1960s era, as Hawthorne’s vocals drip with earnest sincerity, backed by a swinging bassline and shuffling drums.
The songs “Make Her Mine” and “One Track Mind” sound like sister compositions, or at least cousins. On “Make Her Mine,” Hawthorne pines for a woman well outside of his financial league, trying to will a happy future for the two of them. “One Track Mind” envisions life after Hawthorne gets the girl, attempting to satiate her champagne tastes for crème brulee and “shopping bags with expensive tags” with his beer money. He laments that he’s in over his head, but her love is so good, that he continues to flirt with financial ruin.
Hawthorne pays homage to The Impressions on “The Ills,” as he’s moved by the spirit of Curtis Mayfield, occasionally updating the message for late ’00s sensibilities. He bemoans the continued prevalence of fractured family structures, while decrying the US Government’s inactivity and overall indifference at the destruction of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Commanding horn fusillades and furious percussion power the song, which charges ahead at full speed.
The album’s ballads are also ambitious compositions. “I Wish It Would Rain” and “Shiny and New” would fit in on an early 1970s release by The Dramatics or Eddie Holman. Hawthorne’s work on the piano/keyboards on both tracks is as essential to setting the mood as his dulcet crooning. The album closing “Green Eyed Love,” is the one song on the album that doesn’t neatly fall into the “retro” style. The keyboard work and Hawthorne’s smooth delivery give it the feel of late night lounge track. The lengthy guitar solo towards the song’s end feels a bit incongruous, but still works well.
Though much of A Strange Arrangement is about Hawthorne paying tribute to the greats that preceded him, he injects enough of his own identity that it’s not just an exercise in nostalgia. In time, as a vocalist Hawthorne would firmly establish his own voice, independent of his influences. But as a throwback album that captures the spirit of the music that inspired him, A Strange Arrangement is second to none.
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