If you have never heard a Don-E song then please read on & I will try to describe what you have been missing all these years...

Ever since the first album “Unbreakable” was released in 1992 I have been a pretty big fan of his music. In September 2008 the South London singer, songwriter, producer & performer released album number four, “Natural”. It seems not much has changed since the early days as far as the music is concerned, what I mean is that the music is still as good as ever.

“Natural” kicks off on an up-tempo funky note with “Addictive Luv” and a beat not dissimilar to recent Timbaland offerings though seemingly better. Nice club appeal too this one. Next up is “love Shine In” which slows the tempo just a little & also reminds me a bit of old school Don-E, that’s the good thing about this guy, quality is assured!

”Kool” is a nice pop-soul number, kind of along the lines of Dwele’s “Money Don’t Mean A Thing”, I guess Dwele would be a good all round comparison, he & D’angelo, Musiq, Stevie, Prince...you see where I’m going with this!
“Stay a While” is more head-nodding soulful “real” R&B & is becoming one of my favourite tracks on the album. Track number five brings a pleasant surprise to the table, a duet with Keisha Buchanan from the Sugababes. Not being a big fan of the girl group trio I was quite impressed with Keisha’s performance on “Writings on the wall”. One thing I found with this track is that the beat is somewhat off key which took me a few listens to get my ears around, still all good.

If you’re going to do a cover of a classic you’ve got make it good & personally I think you need to bring something new to the song, here we have a quality remake of Bob Marley’s “Waiting In Vain” as a down tempo tune in typical Don-E style. It does its job nicely & really shows off Don-E’s vocal skills too.

Elsewhere on “Natural” you will find a nice mid tempo duet with Kele Le Roc complete with traditional Don-E vocoder inserts. D’angelo makes a guest appearance playing keys on the chilled out “So Cold”, this track alone gives the album a reason to buy it if you need that fix of pure classic neo-soul, it could easily be a track from Brown Sugar!

And what Don-E album would be without an injection of lovers rock, “Holla at me!” provides this element & the album’s title track gives you a little bit of what could easily be compared to The Brand New Heavies soulful acid jazz style. Another duet makes the collection complete, this time ex-Sugababe Mutya Buena joins the Don of UK soul for “The Time Is Now” for a warm fender driven ballad

So there you have it, just a few words to give you an insight into the latest instalment from one of the UK’s finest musicians. Hopefully I may have convinced you to part with a small amount of your hard earned cash & go buy the album, or at least make the effort to give it a listen. Maybe you’ll go all out & witness the live experience, which is amazing by the way, I hope you do cause if you’re a music head then this artist & your ears deserve each other.

 

Words by Bounce
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PRESS RELEASE

“Natural” seems the perfect title for the stunning new album from one of the UK’s most gifted and enduring urban music talents DON-E, for whom writing, producing and performing comes naturally.

He broke onto the music scene in the Nineties on Island Records with his now classic underground club and sound system smash ‘Unbreakable’ and the Top 20 hit ‘Love Makes The World Go Round’.

The new album is a beautifully crafted collection of songs from the up-tempo party vibe of the opening track ‘Addictive Love’ to the irresistible Eighties-flavoured groove ‘Stay A While’.

There are some stand-out duets, including ‘Writing’s On The Wall’ with Keisha Buchanan of the Sugababes, for whom Don has written songs in the past, and ‘Like I Like It’ with Kele Le Roc. The album closes with a stunning ballad duet on ‘The Time Is Now’ with ex-Sugababe Mutya Buena.

‘So Cold’ features Don-e on vocals and keys, Stuart Zender, formerly of Jamiroquai, on guitar and drums, and a guest cameo on Fender Rhodes keyboard from D’Angelo.

Don-e recalls:“Stuart and I hooked up as Azure in the late Nineties, recorded some tracks at Electric Ladyland in New York, then did some more in London at Eastcote Studios. “So Cold” was one of the tracks from those sessions. D’Angelo was in town, passed by the studio to chill, heard the track and said he’d jump on it.

“Copies of this track leaked out years later, bootlegs or whatever, and everyone thought it was a D’Angelo track, so I felt it was time to put the record straight by including it on the new album”.

Also attracting a lot of attention is the slow-jam version of the Bob Marley classic ‘Waiting In Vain’, and TV talent shows get the
Don-e treatment on ‘(You Ain’t No Good) Get Off’, which tells it like it is.

Don-e is a perfect product of his environment rooted in the heart of Brixton, the busy multicultural London suburb where he has built his own studio and has absorbed the diversity and wealth of musical influences of the street.

In recent years he has been focusing primarily on writing and producing for other artists, among them Shaun Escoffery, Mica Paris, Beverley Knight, the Sugababes, Omar and Rahsaan Patterson. His other activities have included regular touring with Grace Jones and presenting vocal master classes on MTV.

“I was involved with the Sugababes from the very beginning of the group, and produced a lot of their initial demos at my studio in Brixton, working with Ron-Tom from Metamorphosis, who put the three girls together. It’s great, now they’re all grown up and successful, that I got to work with Keisha and Mutya on my new project.”

Following his father’s gift of a home made guitar on his fifth birthday, Don-e became hooked at an early age. Several years - and instruments -later he stepped out of school straight into the UK music scene. He was influenced by his parents’ collection of gospel and classic soul legends Aretha, Marvin, Stevie, Sly, Curtis and Donny Hathaway. He also listened to Parliament, Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire but he soon found there were other influences available in the music of Bob Marley, Dennis Brown and Sugar Minott. All around him were the sounds of Reggae, Dub, Lover’s Rock, Jazz, Funk, Pop and then later Ragga, Jungle and Garage. He embraced all this and more, combining melodies, sounds and rhythms to create a style that would be identified as his own.


DON-E NATURAL DOME CD 94
Release: August 25 2008

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