For the Top 40 radio listeners of the world, the closest they’ll come to soul music is Bruno Mars’ high couture attempts at seduction — which is why hearing a bona fide hot-off-the-turntable modern soul stirrer like JC Brooks is all the more vital.
Formerly doing dirty business as JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound, the Chicago-based singer and his group serves up soul tonight at ONCE Ballroom with Gold Blood & Associates and Miss Fairchild. While their album The Neon Jungle dropped in April (a PledgeMusic campaign is ongoing), their current tour is a preemptive strike, spreading the highly-infectious good news in advance of the release.
“If we have forever/I hope we just get better,” Brooks croons on “Rouse Yourself,” the band’s main funk heavy-hitter (which, by the way, features Aubrey Plaza at her peak “over it” Parks and Recreation days, smoking a smoldering cigarette in a bubble bath in the music video). Seeing as 2017 marks the 10-year anniversary of the group’s formation, both clauses are more than likely.
Get familiar with Brooks, and that voice, below.
Featured photo by Marisa Klug Marataya.
