The opening track for British soul man James Hunter's first new album in five years sounds like something that might have come out of Muscle Shoals, Ala., or Chicago's Vee Jay Records in the mid-'60s. But the funky Chicken Switch, which kicks off Minute by Minute, actually comes out of modern-day Brooklyn.
Hunter and his band cut Minute by Minute, out Feb. 26 on Fantasy/Concord Music Group, at Gabriel Roth's Daptone Studios, and it's a veritable encyclopedia of vintage soul sounds.
Hunter "has the rare knack of sounding like both James Brown and Sam Cooke at times" USA TODAY wrote of Hunter when he released 2008's The Hard Way, and that's still true on Minute by Minute.
The James Hunter Six will return to the states for a tour that kicks off Feb. 22 in Fall River, Mass., and culminates in the band's first SXSW shows in Austin in March.
