I Know I’ve Been Changed
Artist: Aaron Neville
Label: Tell It Records / EMI Gospel
Time: 12 Tracks / 43 minutes

Mmmm. That voice is something! I still find it hard to believe that it comes from a 70 year old.

While Neville does not say so, his third gospel album sounds like he has chosen to mark his 50th year of recording by celebrating the Obama era through drawing a line under the slave mentality in the Black community. At the very least, he is going back to his roots.

This comes through in the track listing. This is a strong collection musically anyway, with less common titles, such as “Tell Me What Kind of Man Jesus is” and “Oh Freedom” hiding in the shadows of more popular songs like “You‘ve Got to Move” and “I am a Pilgrim.” But a title like “I Done Made up my Mind” reveals its own history, and lyrics such as Odetta’s “Mourning at the building soon be over” and “...no more weeping over me / Before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be heavy in my grave / and go home to my Lord and be free” are plainly born from suffering in the fields.

Whether or not this is the root of this collection, Neville sounds very much at home in it. History aside, this is a superb recording. Producer Joe Henry has a reputation for simplifying things and creating organic-sounding music and that is just what he has done here. Keeping Neville’s distinctive vocals at the forefront, he has filled in with a range of just-right backing and fills. There are some delicate licks from guitar and Dobro, while Jay Bellerose adds some kicking exclamation-mark hits to his otherwise sensitive drumming.

Allen Toussaint produced that first Neville recording and his boogie-gospel hybrid of piano playing sits at the forefront of this anniversary release. Its prominence in places is the only thing I would change on this disc, but he can match the mood well: his subdued playing on the poignant “Oh Freedom” is one example, and his boogie work drives “Don’t Let Him Ride,” which is a contender for strongest of the great tracks here.

Free of filler, everything here is to enjoy, right down to the order of the songs, which replicate a gospel service, with prayer and testimony at the start. The title track features some guitar that comes straight from the Pops Staples / Buddy Miller schools of playing. Neville probably doesn’t get any closer to country than he does on “I am a Pilgrim,” where his falsetto sounds like Canned Heat and the understated acoustic slide is a delight. Neville’s soulful vocal on the short “There’s a God Somewhere” bathes in the distant organ glow like a landscape in the summer sunset. The praise could go on.

Time-tested songs that can work as prayers; production that lets them breathe; a unique vocal style at its most natural; a soul-stirring blend of gospel, blues, country and even hints of jazz; talented musicians and a sense of history - it’s all here. What a celebration!

Derek Walker