As with many good things in my life, I came across this song through my wife. Out of the hundreds of records crammed into cardboard boxes that clogged up the hallway of her flat when we met (her ex was a DJ with a mountainous record collection), Lewis Taylor’s first album was the one she treasured most. To my never-ending wonder, the first track, Lucky, had an alchemising effect on her every time it was played – the gradual, beautifully nuanced build-up of the song mirrored by the blissed-out smile that crept slowly across her face, the drop accompanied by a wild rhythmic writhing of limbs. She simply could not stand still to it. Even my own decidedly unrhythmic headnods seemed to sync magically to Lewis Taylor.
Before hearing Lucky, I knew of Curtis Mayfield, Roy Ayers and Gil Scott-Heron, and liked them all, but guiltily, and with not a little embarrassment. The nearest things to a soundtrack of my life had been Bob Dylan, Nick Cave and Tom Waits; the nearest I got to shaking my booty was Led Zeppelin – I was certainly no aviator-shades-sporting jazz funkateer. Becoming exposed to my wife’s musical tastes gave me permission to enjoy soul music more openly, and let a joyousness and a sensuality into my listening and my life that I never knew I was missing.
In Lucky, you can hear the pleasure Taylor takes in playing with vocal eccentricities he’s borrowed from Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, James Brown, and others. The acrobatics of his voice are generic, but they play on the surface of a much darker, deeply complex musical mis en scene. Taylor’s genius was to bring an edge of ominous psychedelia to his soul music, creating an aural equivalent of the heart in turmoil. The long build-up and drawn-out climax are gripping and cinematic, the guitar solo akin to Warren Ellis’s plaintive violin playing with the Dirty Three. The layers of melody and feeling pile up to evoke a profound sense of longing, what Nick Cave might call “duende”.
Since my ear was well attuned to the themes of heartbreak and obsessive desire, Lucky made sense to me immediately. What blew my narrow mind was the release from that tension: the sudden outbursts of funkiness, the sweetness of the unexpected vocal harmonies, the transcendental moments of grace.
I’m aware of the irony the song’s subject matter might invoke – it’s basically the funky twin of Grinderman’s No Pussy Blues – but, for better or for worse, I think of Lucky as “our song”.
