“You got to get your own thing, your own thing goin’ on,” exhorts Charles “Wigg” Walker on the outgoing vamp of the second track of the Dynamites’ churning, gutbucket debut. His is worthy advice for any new band, but especially for a deep funk and soul combo whose sonic touchstones are Dyke & the Blazers and James Brown and his fabulous JBs. And yet by employing studio effects and techniques that owe as much to contemporary hip-hop as to old-school funk — and by not using retro gear and mikes — the Nashville nine-piece manages to keep things fresh.
It certainly helps that the lyrics on the album are of the moment, such as on “Way Down South”, a funkadelic lament for bandleader Bill Elder’s adopted hometown of New Orleans. Singing in an urgent rasp, Walker moans, “We got hurricanes with beautiful names/287 years gone up in flames/Now the soul of a nation’s flooded in tears/Half a city just disappears!”
Elder’s inventive arrangements notwithstanding, the Dynamites’ secret weapon is Walker, a well-traveled soul shouter who toured with and learned from the likes of James Brown and Jackie Wilson back when he and his bands were regulars at the Apollo Theater and Small’s Paradise in Harlem.
That was some 40 years ago, but as Walker’s impassioned performances here attest, his sort of deep-throated, declamatory delivery has never gone out of style. Track titles like “Slinky”, “Dig Deeper” and “Can You Feel It?” say it all — that is, until Walker and the Dynamites lock into a swampy groove and bring the funk.