@SOUNDCHECK - profiling bands that drive Boston's musical machine

Somebody to believe in

Thaddeus Hogarth's organic soul by Jonathan Perry  

THE FIRST 30 SECONDS OF  "I Just Wanna Be Like You." the opening track on Thaddeus Hogarth's second solo album, Trying To Believe , provides nothing less than a window into a lifetime of listening. 

For Hogarth, a Boston-based songwriter born in England and raised in the West Indies, music -- soul, pop, reggae, funk -- is all that's ever mattered. You can hear it in the melting pot of dub-reggae rhythms, the Mayfieldian wah-wah guitar washes, and the seemingly effortless Wonder-ous melody that drives the disc's first tune and nearly a dozen of its other keepsakes of old-school soul and greasy funk. 

The disc's a deliciously satisfying extension of  "When the Sun Goes Down", Hogarth's self-produced, self-released 1999 solo debut that marked his return to writing and performing after his departure from the brass-driven Boston funk outfit Heavy Metal Horns, in 1994. The album earned the singer favorable comparisons with folks named Wonder and Withers, Green and Gaye, and of course, Sly. Closer to his peer group is Lenny Kravitz, a similarly retro-minded renaissance man who shares Hogarth's affection for the shag-carpet deep grooves of the Me Decade. He mentions Kravitz before I do, but seems to chafe at the comparison.

"I like all types of music and I don't consider myself contrived in any way at all", Hogarth says over lunch at Coffee Cantata in Jamaica Plain.

"I don't get up and say, 'Hey, I wanna try to sound like Lenny Kravitz.' I grew up in London and Saint Kitts, so I ran into the Beatles and [everything else] that was happening then. And in Saint Kitts, I was into everything - Bob Marley, Joan Armatrading, Hendrix, Santana - anything I could get my hands on. And my music is a reflection of all the stuff I grew up listening to."

As a matter of fact, Hogarth, who'll celebrate the disc's release with a March 16 show at the Milky Way, says his solo work reflects his initial impulses as a songwriter. Back in the 1980s, he was considered out of step for having an Afro 10 years too late. "My writing was like this in the first place," he says, "And anytime I would submit that stuff to somebody or [record] labels,  they would say,  'Man, this is really not happening. This is passe´ ". 

Hogarth found his niche in the Heavy Metal Horns in the '90s, after graduating from the Berklee College of Music. But after a while, the versatile multi-instrumentalist (in addition to writing, Hogarth sings and plays guitar, keyboards, and harmonica) grew restless. He knew what he had to do. "I didn't really have a choice when I left the Horns," he says, "I just reached the point where I wasn't really that happy with what I was doing, and I felt I needed some downtime to re-evaluate. When you get to the point where you can't feel the reasons why you're doing a lot of work and it doesn't pay off for you, it's time to make a change ... I felt like I was going to have to rebuild from scratch. I just had to get away and try something different".

After a period of soul-searching and an abortive attempt at a solo album (supported by working the corporate wedding circuit), Hogarth started writing songs again. And the rest, as they say, is history.  Backed by a crack band consisting of drummer Joey Scrima and Boston Pops bass player David Buda ("I really believe that they are the best rhythm section in the World ...What these guys do live is phenomenal"), Hogarth has made a lush, vividly expressive second album that beats with the heart of experience and swings with the thrills of discovery.  Most of the basic tracks, he says, were recorded in one take, and from there, Hogarth took the tape home and added guitar, keyboards, background vocals, and chromatic harmonica (that's where the Steve Wonder comparisons come in).

I definitely wanted it to sound like, if I gave the CD to someone to listen to, they could almost get to know me as a person," he says, Trying To Believe, he adds, "is a parable of the human effort. It's about trying to believe in your existence, trying to believe in God, dealing with the past, dealing with love. I wanted it to be a snapshot of who I am".

Trying To Believe marks another new beginning for the artist. In contrast with his self-financed solo debut, the Boston-based Spinning Records label is releasing the new album, which will get national distribution. No matter what happens commercially, Hogarth feels that in signing with Spinning, he just got a promotion. "If the whole world tunes in it's a beautiful thing," he says. "But if they don't, I'll still be here doing it. You'll be pushing me around in a wheelchair in the studio. I really believe that this is what I was put on the planet to do -- it's the reason why I'm here."@