words & photos by Jacob Blickenstaff

Maxine Brown & The Sweet Divines

The 1st Brooklyn Soul Festival was a great success. Sell out crowd on the 1st night and nearly so on the second. The crowd was a nice mix of the soul intelligentsia, older music fans and twenty-somethings out to hear some good music. Both backing bands, Eli Reed and the True Loves and the Sweet Divines/Divine Soul Rhythm Band did a phenomenal job bringing the groove and nuance out of a large range of material with obvious love and attention. That set the stage for the artists - Hermon Hitson, Roscoe Robinson and Barbara Lynn on the first night and Maxine Brown and Otis Clay on the second - to shine brightly and deliver stunning performances.

"The Sweet Divines seem to be taking a tip from the Sweet Inspirations, a sixties soul quartet that included Cissy Houston, who was Whitney's mother and Dionne Warwick's aunt. In addition to recording their own songs the Sweet Inspirations sang back up for Aretha Franklin and Elvis. Similarly, the Sweet Divines have sung back up for soul singers such as Sharon Jones (see Purplish Rain). In a move that seemed to bring everything full circle, old school soul meets retro soul, on Saturday the Sweet Divines sang back up for Maxine Brown, who was backed up by the Sweet Inspirations in the 1960's." [The Strongest Women I Know]

Read more about it with Jacob's first night's pictures HERE. More pictures from the second night, below...

Continue reading "The Brooklyn Soul Festival @ the Bell House - night 2 in pics (The Sweet Divines, Maxine Brown, Otis Clay & friends)"

Village Voice: So how did the idea of a soul festival first start out?

Richard Lewis, Organizer of the Brooklyn Soul Festival: We've known Eli [Paperboy Reed] for a while and have been talking about doing a bigger deal than Dig Deeper; something more like a festival. In Europe, they have this concept of a weekender where everyone goes somewhere for the weekend and stays up til dawn dancing and listening to DJs and bands. That's done less so here in the U.S. Michael and I had this idea of doing a bigger thing with multiple artists like that and Eli had been thinking of doing a night with three artists that he had backed at various times. So we said, 'why don't we just do the thing together and make a festival out of it?'

Eli 'Paperboy' Reed & The True Loves will play backing band at The Bell House tonight (8/28). The Sweet Divines have that honor on Saturday. Tickets and more info on this weekend's festival, which includes a record fair on Saturday, HERE.

Recent live Eli Reed, who makes an appearance on the new Basement Jaxx album, videos below...

Continue reading "The Brooklyn Soul Festival is here (Friday & Saturday)"