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Review of the album My Acoustic Soul - In The Basement magazine – May-July 2008Originally from Baltimore, MD, but now based in Paris, John Simms, together with his late brother, Arthur, released an eponymous album on Casablanca back in 1980, scoring on the r&b charts with the single therefrom, ‘That Thang Of Yours’. The title here (My Acoustic Soul) refers more to the nature of being stripped down to often personal lyrics than to the musical accompaniment, John being assisted (except on the multi-John plus guitar, ‘She Told Me’) by six further musicians, who make a good backdrop for his compositions, the whole coming across like some sort of menage à trois - the French connection! - between Terry Callier, Eric Bibb and Dobie Gray, plus more than a soupçon (!) of originality. (I’d even venture to add Cat Stevens into the mix for the gently toe-tapping, mandolin-supported ‘Anything For You’.) This generally low-key outing earns such adjectives as ‘profound’ (the Bobby Rangell sax and Johan Dalgaard keyboard-supported ‘Does It Matter Now’), ‘impactful’ (‘You Lift Me Up’, sax again) and ‘complex’ - ‘It’s Hard To Say Goodbye’, which gets some reggae beats thrown in occasionally. Although Simms often provides his own vocal backings, he is assisted by Ms Jean Carpenter for the gentle ‘When The Storm Is Over’ and by Kieran Mahoney and Cormac O’Neil for the upbeat ‘You Can Handle It’. ‘Keep The Good’, the set’s closer, is dedicated to brother Arthur, while the most commercial offering is the beat-ballad, ‘I’ve Got To Know’. Regular ITB?contributor, Frederic Adrian, drew my attention to this most worthy set. He is hoping to catch one of his Paris gigs shortly and, on the strength of this, will doubtless have a moving experience.David Cole - Editor
