BY L. Michael Gipson --To remix a famous phrase, "No more cover albums ever, Kenny!" With eyes
bulging and a wire hanger high in hand, it's what you want to scream
when you hear that such a talented musician has essentially relegated
himself to a wedding singer. Timeless is Kenny Lattimore's third album of covers, including two with his wife, Chante Moore. As a collection Timeless
holds up well enough, in some instances even better than most in the
covers album cottage industry. The problem is that with each Lattimore
cover album, we know Kenny less and less as a distinctive artist. The
rapidly disappearing uniqueness of Kenny Lattimore is also starting to
slip into his work as he strives to be more like the originals and less
like himself."Stop trying to be someone you're not." This is a line Kenny covers from the Aretha Franklin classic "Ain't No Way" (from Lady Soul). The line also works as direction for Kenny Lattimore on some of these Timeless
tunes. Taking homage and respect to new heights (or is it lows?), Kenny
now approaches his Donny Hathaway material (in this instance "Giving
Up") by copying far too many of his idol's vocal affectations and
signature styling. This is worlds apart from Lattimore's more original
cover of Hathaway's "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know," heralded
from Kenny's apparent magnum opus, From The Soul of A Man.
While there were covers on that album too, including an endearing
rendition of George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and a
jaw-dropping version of the gospel standard "Well Done," they were all
squarely stamped with Kenny's distinct sophisticated style. That
originality ducks for cover (pun intended) on Otis Redding's "I Love
You More Than Words Can Say" and the Whitfield and Strong classic
"That's The Way Love Is." With every faux growl and Southern soul yell,
we wonder when did our Northern hipster start eating pig's feet and
saying "reckon?"It wasn't always this way. Once Kenny Lattimore was a well-respected
artist with a unique voice and-some critic's argued-too pristine
vocals. On his 1996 self-titled debut, Lattimore took that polished
tenor all the way to #6 on the Billboard R&B chart with "For You,"
a wedding song whose prophetic qualities regarding Kenny's future were
then underappreciated. He followed up that platinum debut with From The Soul of A Man,
an elegant collection of original songs mostly produced by Stuart
Matthewman (Sade, Maxwell) and that introduced the R&B career of
Broadway diva Heather Headley. The album received deserved critical
acclaim, but didn't fare as well in the market as its predecessor, only
going a respectable gold.CONTINUE READING...