Stewart Francke

Stewart Francke is a white, Detroit-based singer/songwriter who’s made one of the finest soul albums in recent memory. Previously, Francke’s music sounded a bit like Jackson Browne dancing with Southside Johnny. On What We Talk of … When We Talk, he expands his horizons, calling out to the giants of ’70s soul who confronted issues of race and class with music that could inspire: Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield. In his own soulful, intricately orchestrated songs, Francke recounts the harshest details of our own times: little kids packing heat, adults working two jobs and getting nowhere, electoral options that aren’t options at all, racial profiling and police violence. As one song bleeds into the next, Francke makes plain that answers will be found only when we stop kidding ourselves about the questions — beginning with one as basic as, say, “What’s going on?” In old-school soul, he’s found a language that will let him really “talk it out.”

Of course, by borrowing the musical language of past masters, Francke doesn’t just raise the stakes; he sends expectations through the roof. Every moment here would be improved if Francke’s voice equaled his ambitions, and even the album’s finest arrangements, moving and elegant as they are, feel stiff and a little clumsy beside their inspirations. “American Twilight,” for example, is built on the haunting piano chord that begins “Inner City Blues,” but the result is much closer to the blue-eyed soul of Style Council or ABC than it is to Marvin Gaye. Then again, those bands made some pretty damn good records, and to Francke’s credit, he has no use for the recurring layers of irony and emotional distance that posed the two Brit bands’ most significant limitations. Today’s pop-rock landscape suffers from many of the same problems, and in that context, Francke’s earnest approach squashes quibbles flat. Lyrically and musically, What We Talk of … is a rare gesture — compelling, risky and, considering our own cautious and dangerous times, even important. The question is: Can he get a witness?