Neo-soul singer Maxwell is back in the game

 
Maxwell was feeling a bit apprehensive when he hit the stage at Oakland's Paramount Theatre last October to begin a monthlong 13-city tour. Other than a television salute to Al Green four months earlier, the neo-soul singing sensation hadn't appeared in public in six years. Nor had he released an album in seven. Now he was taking the risk of performing several new songs his fans had never heard from a CD that wouldn't hit stores for nine more months. "You just kinda cross your fingers and jump off the cliff," Maxwell, 36, says by phone from Toronto recently. He and his band were rehearsing there for another monthlong tour that stops Saturday at the Sleep Train Pavilion in Concord. "I think the only thing that is undeniable is a live performance," he says of his reason for doing unreleased songs on last year's tour. "It's the fastest way to get music to your audience that's memorable and hopefully exciting for them. That's kind of why I wanted to start out that way, instead of just trying to go through the conveyor belt and the whole system. I was basically cutting the middleman out." The Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter's initial fears proved unfounded, as the tour was a critical and box office success. "It was such a blessing, such a surprise," he says. "There are no words to describe what it feels like to be validated by real people, not the industry telling you whatever, but the actual people. And I think also that people in the industry kinda enjoyed watching something like that happen. I would think it maybe brought them back to the part of them that loves music for just the music's sake and not just for what tends to happen as you get into the politics of the music industry."The new CD, "BLACKsummers'night," also was successful, entering Billboard's pop and R&B charts at No. 1 after its July 7 release. And the ballad "Pretty Wings," the first single, was the second of the singer's career to top the R&B and adult contemporary charts."BLACKsummers'night" is the first in three-CD trilogy for Columbia Records. The others will be titled "blackSUMMERS'night" and "blacksummers'NIGHT" and are slated for release in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Maxwell and his guitarist, songwriting collaborator and co-producer Hod David have finished recording "blackSUMMERS'night" and "blacksummers'NIGHT," although the tracks have yet to be mixed.  Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/09/PKU219VBFT.DTL&type=music#ixzz0TqAYKjMf