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Soul powerhouse Kings Go Forth doesn't look back.
A skilled and respected crate-digger, Andy Noble’s an aficionado of small-batch funk and soul—the more obscure the better. The lifelong Milwaukeean can ramble confidently, excitedly and endlessly on music topics ranging from esoteric disco-rap to cry-baby critics. The former proprietor of the celebrated and recently shuttered record shop Lotus Land has collaborated with Chicago’s Numero Group for a handful of releases.
Now, the 34-year-old has given the Midwest its best live soul band with Kings Go Forth, a nine-piece troupe poised to break out of Brew City on the strength of its home-recorded debut for Luaka Bop, The Outsiders Are Back. The album’s scrappy aesthetic and raw textures help fuel the empowering uptempo single “One Day” and “Don’t Take My Shadow,” a pulsating, string-laden soul-dripper.
The band’s not-so-secret weapon is lead singer Black Wolf, 56, a veteran of the Essentials, a once-promising outfit that cut an unreleased session at Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom studio in the mid ’70s. When Wolf’s tenor effortlessly lifts into falsetto, he seems to channel Mayfield. Noble and Wolf first met in 2004: Wolf, working as a tailor, bumped into Noble when producing a gospel vocal session across the street from the first Lotus Land location.
Music flows through the Michigan-born African-American singer’s veins as it did through the Cherokee blood of his father, Wolf tells us. “My father was a bluesman. Frontmen in bands go back in my family about a hundred years,” says Wolf, born Jesse Davis. “I never looked at it as special because it was always casual, almost like the tailoring—that was casual, too. I just took it to another level.” (Now the onetime tailor makes the Kings’ outfits.)
At first, Kings Go Forth’s formation sounds like a familiar story—one not unlike that of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. But Noble is reluctant to jump on that bandwagon, as he explains from home in Milwaukee’s River West neighborhood. “There’s this resurrection idea: Nerdy white dudes find cool black soul guy and make new record,” the bassist-composer says. “Our situation is a lot more convoluted.” Culled from a Latin jazz outfit, De La Buena, and area ska acts, the motley Kings balance their frontman’s old-school croon with a contemporary approach, contrary to purist peers.
Noble bristles at the term retro. “I saw the White Stripes with, like, five people [circa 2000]. I walked out after two songs thinking, These guys just sound like a shitty Led Zeppelin. I’ll guarantee you there’s not one review that says retro rock band the White Stripes.” As Noble illuminates the disparities between rock and soul criticism, the low pitch of his voice grows higher and more agitated until it rivals that of Robert Plant. “They can play Led Zeppelin for the rest of their fuckin’ lives and no one will ever call them a retro band. What the fuck is up with that? I’m so fucking sick of that!”
Lazy music scribes often call upon the usual touchstones: “As soon as they see you’ve got a horn section, they’re like, Stax! Motown!” Yet those labels’ celebrated artists often enjoyed comfortable recording environments, large budgets and a stable of top-shelf session musicians. Noble prizes the opposite: obscure, often quirky recordings where vulnerabilities become strengths. He picked up a Tascam 8-track tape machine for $300 and cut The Outsiders in the band’s practice space. “My influences mainly are small-budget, small-studio records. I’m listening to stuff from then and trying to make it sound good now,” he says. “I’m trying to make something that doesn’t make me wanna puke.”
Black Wolf is a bit more diplomatic: “I’m a gospel kid out of church who sings soul. You could put any style of music under it. Some of the songs on the album, if I were to say ‘Jesus,’ they would be gospel.” Wolf lets out a chuckle before adding, “I’m just kickin’ ass. I don’t care what they call it.”
Kings Go Forth plays Double Door Friday 18.
