Though British soul/blues man James Hunter has been kicking around since the 1980s, his career didn't take off until his 2006 album, PEOPLE GONNA TALK. Playing for bigger stakes, he nevertheless brings exactly the same approach to the follow-up, THE HARD WAY. Blending Sam Cooke-like smooth soul-pop, hard-grooving Lee Dorsey-esque R&B, and a terse and visceral blues guitar style, Hunter creates a musical universe in which nothing happened before 1960 or after 1965, but somehow makes it all sound timely (timeless?), vital, and relevant, crooning sweet ballads one moment and leaping into furiously syncopated stompers the next.
