Stone Rollin'
Encyclopedia
Stone Rollin is the fourth studio album
by American recording artist Raphael Saadiq
, released March 25, 2011, on Columbia Records
. Recording sessions for the album took place at Blakeslee Recording Company in Los Angeles during 2009 to 2010. Inspired by the loud, raw sound of his live performances, Saadiq worked with recording engineer and long-time collaborator Chuck Brungardt to produce a grittier, more aggressive sound for the album. Primarily performed by Saadiq, Stone Rollin expands on the classicist, soul music
style of his previous 2008 album, The Way I See It
, with other R&B
styles, including funk
, blues
, and rock music
. Music writers have noted the album for its stylistic breadth, groove-based compositions, contemporary detail, varied subject matter, and incorporation of the Mellotron
keyboard.
Initially released in Europe, the album attained international charting
in several countries, including Norway, where it reached its highest chart position. In the United States, it debuted at number 14 on the Billboard 200
chart, selling 21,000 copies in its first week, making it Saadiq's highest-charting release in the US. The album produced three singles, including the US R&B hit "Good Man". Upon its release, Stone Rollin received general acclaim from music critics, earning praise for its classicist style, musical eclecticism, and Saadiq's songwriting. As of May 2011, the album has sold 32,100 copies in the United States. Saadiq promoted the album with a concert tour spanning from March to August 2011, performing shows in North American venues and European music festivals.
, which featured 1960s Motown Sound-inspired songs with classicist soul music
influences. The Way I See It was also an exemplary release of the "classic soul revival" during its peak at the time, a music scene marked by similarly retro-minded work from mainstream artists such as Amy Winehouse
and Adele
, independent acts such as Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
and Mayer Hawthorne
, and older artists making comebacks such as Al Green
and Bettye LaVette
. In promoting the album, Saadiq broadened his audience demographic and expanded as a touring artist, playing various music festivals throughout Europe and the United States. Along with his material's style, Saadiq himself adopted a classicist soul image, donning old-fashioned attire and performing R&B dance moves at shows. This touring experience influenced him in his creative approach for Stone Rollin, noting the louder, raw sound and general feeling of performing live.
Saadiq has said of his creative intentions with the follow-up, "I’ve never shut my ears to anything, really. It’s not like I’m always looking for things, either, but I can’t close my ears to any music. Any guitar, any drums, any rhythm section— I’ve always been open to those things, trying to understand what makes them work in a song". He was influenced by early rock and roll artists such as Chuck Berry
and Bo Diddley
, and has cited blues
musician Howlin' Wolf
as an influence on the album's sound, which he described as "bluesy" and "harder" than that of his previous album, with more aggressive tempos. In an interview for BULLETT Magazine, Saadiq explained his idea of the album's title, stating "Stone Rollin basically symbolizes the action of throwing dice and taking chances with life. That's what I've done my whole career—taking chances with different styles of music and making choices that other people would be afraid to take. Stone Rollin means I'm going all the way out there this time".
s, with the exception of the vocals and some of its drums. In an interview for EQ Magazine
, Brungardt said of their approach, "We wanted to evolve the songs, and I wanted to evolve the engineering, as well. On The Way I See It, everything was pretty much tube pre
's and tube compressors. On this one, I wanted to play around with some of the more solid-state
gear".
For the majority of the recordings, Saadiq played most of the instruments, including bass, keyboard, guitar, Mellotron
, percussion, and drums, and he also layered
each recorded instrumental part afterwards. Brungardt used a Neumann U 47
microphone to record each of Saadiq's instrument part. Saadiq recorded his vocals on a dynamic microphone alone in the recording studio's control room, an approach encouraged to him earlier in his career by record producer and audio engineer Gerry Brown
. According to Brungardt, "[Saadiq's] voice benefits from a dynamic mic because it tends to give him more bottom and presence. Plus dynamic mics can sound a little older when pushed". With the songs' guitar parts, Brungardt wanted to create additional distortion in order to produce a grittier, guitar sound for the songs, a stylistic preference Saadiq and him had acquired from listening to a great deal of indie rock
at the time. He applied several techniques to achieve this sound, including increasing the gain
on Saadiq's Fender Twin
guitar amplifier, using a software plug-in for the recordings in post-production, and re-amp
ing Saadiq's guitar parts. In his interview for EQ Magazine, Brungardt discussed using a Massey TapeHead, one of his preferred plug-ins, in the recording process, stating "I’ll use that on a lot of things to get a little more grit. It thickens stuff up nicely if you record something that’s a little too bright. I usually go a lot for darker tones when recording and mixing".
Some of the album's songs were recorded by Saadiq with his live band, which included drummer Lemar Carter, bassist Calvin Turner, and guitarist Rob Bacon. Bacon, who had played with Saadiq since 2002, said of their grittier approach to guitar, "I have relative pitch
, as opposed to perfect pitch
, so there'd be times when I'd spend 15 or 20 minutes tuning
my instrument. Then he'd come in and pick up his guitar and just start playing it however it was left the day before. On one of the tracks I had to play over all this stuff that was out of tune. Raphael was like, 'That's what makes it funky!'". Musical guests such as vocalist Yukimi Nagano
, keyboardist Larry Dunn
, bass player Larry Graham
, keyboardist Amp Fiddler
, and pedal steel guitarist Robert Randolph also contributed to the album's recording sessions, with Saadiq selecting their parts for certain tracks. The song "Go to Hell" was conceived from one of Amp Fiddler's Mellotron ideas. Saadiq recorded a duet with Larry Graham called "The Perfect Storm", included as a hidden track
on the album. He later said of recording with Graham, "I played bass, but I put my bass down [laughs]. The first day I tried to play bass for him, I couldn't even play. I froze three times. He's my all-time idol!".
For several songs, Saadiq incorporated lush orchestration and strings
as predominant elements. He worked on the orchestral recording with arranger Paul Riser
and Gerry Brown at Ocean Way Recording
's Studio B in Los Angeles, while the songs' horn
parts were mostly recorded at the Blakeslee studio. He later explained his approach for each song's orchestration, "Instead of just having a string section off in the background. I wanted on certain songs for the strings to be more expressive, so I talked to Paul Riser about the titles and what I was going for in the songs. I’d say, 'For this word, I want it to be orchestrated this way. When I listen to the song 'Go to Hell', I want to hear the winds in the valley rushing into me'". Brown also worked with Saadiq on the album's tracking at Blakeslee. The album was mixed
using Pro Tools
in Blakeslee Recording Company's Studio A, with the SSL
4000 used mostly for monitoring, and using the SSL 9000 in the "C" room. During mixing, Brungardt used equalization filters such as a McDSP FilterBank plug-in and Waves Renaissance EQ
to handle excessive high end in spots, and he utilized other equipment for additional sound effects, including a Line 6 Echo Farm, a Roland Space Echo
, and an Echoplex clone
.
styles. Along with mid-tempo soul songs, Stone Rollin features styles such as early R&B-rooted rock and roll
, rock
-inspiring funk
, Chess Records
-blues, and the more expansive orchestral sound of post-Detroit Motown and 1970s Philadelphia soul
. Disc jockey Chris Douridas
describes Saadiq's sound as "a hybrid form that's rooted in these familiar elements from classic soul but recontextualized with a modern sound". Nick Butler of Sputnikmusic
denotes the songs as "belters" and "guitar-heavy", and wrote of its musical influences, "While Prince
informs the sound of this more than anybody, it's a very early-'70s sounding album on the whole [...] but there are influences that go back even further than that - Ray Charles
and Little Richard
in particular inform some of this record's more energetic moments." Los Angeles Times
journalist Mikael Wood writes of the album's sound and production, "Where Saadiq's previous efforts luxuriated in the layering and the fine-tuning made possible by modern recording gear, Stone Rollin' presents a rawer, rowdier soul-rock sound modeled after his energetic stage show".
Music writer Robert Christgau
denotes the album's sound to be less hook
-oriented than that of The Way I See It, and views Saadiq's compositions as characterized with "groove rather than song". Andy Kellman of Allmusic writes that the songs are "tied together by the Mellotron, a vintage keyboard — commonly associated with psychedelic
and progressive rock
recordings, but not foreign to soul — that evokes diseased flutes and wheezing strings", adding that "Saadiq tends to use the instrument for shading". Music journalist Jim DeRogatis
shares a similar sentiment and writes of Saadiq's stylistic change, "There is a little less Motown gloss this time around and a little more rock grit in Saadiq’s grooves, heavy on the Sly Stone
(witness the opening 'Heart Attack'), late '50s/early '60s Isley Brothers
(the joyful 'Radio'), and Ray Charles ('Day Dreams'), to say nothing of the skillful use of Mellotron orchestrations as a connecting thread throughout the disc, sort of like the Moody Blues
suddenly finding the funk ('The Answer')." Steve Horowitz of PopMatters
finds the songs' subject matter to be assorted and comments that Saadiq "personalizes each song so they seem connected as just the many aspects of one man’s existence and experience".
The opening track, "Heart Attack", features elements of rock and roll and soul music, incorporating driving bass, reverberating rhythm guitar
, a four-on-the-floor drum beat, high-pitched vocals, and tambourine-accented groove. The song is an homage to one of Saadiq's musical idols, Sly Stone, and was inspired by Sly and the Family Stone songs "Dance to the Music
" and "M'Lady". Its burbling background vocals are adapted from the former song. Saadiq said of his creative intentions with the song, "I wanted the album to start out with that sense of urgency, that global soul and rock & roll feel". Music journalist Andy Gill writes that it "explosively replicates the high-energy impact of Sly & The Family Stone". Sputnikmusic
's Nick Butler calls the song "a textbook study in blending rock and soul without diluting the power of either." The gospel
-styled "Go to Hell" contains spiritual overtones and harmonious orchestration and choir vocals. The song's line "I’m going to be a warrior of everything I say" is an allusion to Saadiq's adopted surname, which means "man of his word" in Arabic. The Chuck Berry-inspired "Radio" features rockabilly
guitar riffs and twelve-bar blues. The song's lyrics present a disapproving woman as the personification of mainstream radio
: "I met this girl named Radio / said her signal was low / she wasn't getting my sound". According to Saadiq, the line "I tried to move away / she found me the very next day" alludes to his affinity for his musical roots and those of rock and roll.
"Over You" is a pleading ballad that incorporates Wall of Sound
-styled strings, crashing, big-beat
drums played in double-time
, and psychedlic influences. The album's title track is an ode to curvaceous, full-figured women, with lusty lyrics and declamatory vocals by Saadiq. It features bluesy harmonica, funky guitar riffs, and a sound described by Saadiq as "dirty, more of like a Chicago Blues
, Rolling Stones
dirty record [...] the bluesiest joint" on the album. "Day Dreams" is about spending above one's means to satisfy a woman and was inspired by Ray Charles
and Johnny Cash
. The song incorporates rockabilly-shuffle elements, a shuffling Bo Diddley-like backbeat, chicken scratch
-styled guitar by Saadiq, and steel guitar
slide
work by Robert Randolph. "Movin' Down the Line", an ode to a love unrequited
, features mellow horns, jangling guitar, heavy bass lines, and a swelling string and piano conclusion
. Music writer Lloyd Bradley
writes that the song exemplifies the album's combination of classicist style and contemporary detail, stating "It has every bit of digital snap needed to succeed among today’s sounds; but Saadiq’s masterful use of a big brass section lurking w-a-a-ay into the background picks the tune up and puts it down in a completely different era. The song turns out both laidback and urgent at the same time, and is utterly irrepressible for it".
Containing a psychedelic funk sound, "Just Don't" has its narrator expressing his dejection as he realizes his woman has moved on. The song features guest vocals by Yukimi Nagano and an extended Moog
solo by Larry Dunn. "Good Man" contains plaintive lyrics and a hook co-written and sung by vocalist Taura Stinson. Her lines for the hook, including "I'm a good man / Food on the table / Working two jobs / Ready, willing, and able", contrast Saadiq's anguished narration of a man mourning his woman's betrayal. Music writer Andy Kellman cites it as "the most compelling song on the album", describing it as "a mini-epic of trouble-man soul, somewhere along the lines of Ohio Players
' 'Our Love Has Died' and a missing cut off David Porter
's Victim of the Joke? [...] its elegant misery is instantly striking, enhanced by Taura Stinson's pouty guest vocal". The album's closing track, "The Answer", features a wistful, jazz-funk
sound, with marching snare drums and muffled horns, and a socio-political tone. Its lyrics express a call for collective and individual responsibility. Saadiq discussed his inspiration for the song in an interview for BULLETT Magazine, stating "I always have a song similar to that on my albums. I was just thinking about growing up in Oakland and all the older people and mentors who helped me out at the time. So I just wanted to throw it back and say thank you, and tell all the kids out there to listen to the people trying to guide them".
and distributed by Sony Music Entertainment
. Originally scheduled for March 22, 2011, it was released on March 25 in continental European countries such as the Netherlands, France, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, and Sweden. The album was subsequently released in the United Kingdom on April 4, in Germany on April 22, in the United States on May 10, and in Australia on May 20. On December 16, 2010, Saadiq hosted a listening party at his recording studio and premiered songs from the album to public radio station KCRW
. On January 20, he previewed the album in a live set at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco, performing six songs with a five-piece backing band. On February 3, he held an exclusive listening session at the Royalton Hotel
in New York City, performing six songs with an acoustic trio of guitar, bass, and percussion. Saadiq and his band performed on a live broadcast of KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic
program on March 18. He also performed songs from the album for the Red Bull Live Sessions
webcast on March 26. On April 4, Saadiq performed the song "Just Don't" on The Tavis Smiley Show
, and on April 5, he appeared on Later... with Jools Holland in promotion of the album. Saadiq headlined an exclusive show at the O2 Shepherds Bush Empire in London on April 28. On May 12, he performed an outdoor set on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and a five-song set on BET
's 106 & Park
. In the week preceding its US release, Stone Rollin was made available for streaming
at NPR Music
.
Three singles were released in promotion of the album. Lead single
"Radio" was released on December 21, 2010, as a digital download
. Its music video premiered on January 6 and features imagery reflecting both retro and modern styles. The second single "Good Man" was released on February 15. It reached number 52 and spent 16 weeks on the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
chart. It also reached number 20 on the Billboard Adult R&B
. Premiered on February 8, its music video was filmed by Isaiah Seret and features fashion model Yaya DaCosta and actor Chad Coleman
. Saadiq said of the video's storyline, "'Good Man' tells the story I've seen many times in my own life. Everything around that man can be bad, his occupation, lifestyle, friends, but underneath all of it, he is...a good man". The third single, the title track, was released on March 22. It peaked at number 38 on the US Triple-A
chart. Its music video was directed by Dori Oskowitz and premiered through Saadiq's Vevo
channel on March 28. Set in an all-female social club, the video features Saadiq and his band in a low-key, impromptu performance of the song, as a sexually-attractive woman enters the club. Saadiq performed "Stone Rollin on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
on March 21, and on Conan on May 16. A music video for "Day Dreams", starring actor Danny Pudi
, was directed by Bret McKenzie
and premiered by Hulu
on August 11.
Saadiq also promoted Stone Rollin with a North American spring tour, performing a series of concerts during March to June 2011. It began on March 15 at the House of Blues
in Dallas and concluded on June 8 at Stubb's in Austin, Texas. Some concert dates featured electronic music duo Quadron
as an opening act. The tour included performances at music festivals such as South by Southwest
and Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
, for which Saadiq played songs from The Way I See It and Stone Rollin, as well as unreleased material. In reproducing the album's recorded music onstage, he performed with his eight-piece band, which included bass player Calvin Turner, drummers Lemar Carter and Charles Jones, guitarists Rob Bacon and Josh Smith, and backing singers Erika Jerry and BJ Kemp. In contrast to his touring for The Way I See It, Saadiq did not include a horn section for certain shows and played on guitar for a more rock-oriented sound. While travelling between concert dates, Saadiq and his bandmates watched music documentaries for inspiration, including a documentary on Bob Marley & The Wailers
and the 1973 film Wattstax
. He expanded his touring in promotion of the album into August 2011, with concerts alternating between North American headlining dates and European music festivals.
in the week ending April 16, 2011. It also entered at number eight on the R&B Albums Chart
in the UK, on which it ultimately charted for five weeks. In its second week, the album dropped to number 89 on the UK Albums Chart. It fell off the chart in its third week. The album debuted at number 58 in Switzerland, number 73 in the Netherlands, number 26 in France, number 82 in Canada, and number eight in Norway. In its second week, Stone Rollin moved up to number seven, its peak position on Norway's VG-lista
chart. The album charted for five weeks in the Netherlands, nine weeks in France, four weeks in Norway, and seven weeks in Switzerland.
Upon its release in the United States, the album debuted at number 14 on the US Billboard 200
chart, with first-week domestic sales of 21,000 copies. It is Saadiq's highest-charting album on the Billboard 200. The album also entered at number four on Billboard
s R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
and at number 13 on its Digital Albums chart. It sold 10,500 copies in its second week of release. As of May 2011, Stone Rollin has sold 32,100 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan
. It ultimately spent eight weeks on the Billboard 200 and nine weeks on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.
s. At Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
score of 86, based on 20 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Allmusic editor Andy Kellman gave it four-and-a-half out of five stars and commented that "The album does not merely transcend period-piece
status. It’s the high point of Saadiq’s career, his exceptional output with Tony! Toni! Toné!
included". Entertainment Weekly
s Brad Wete noted "elements of blithe Stonesish rock" and "'60s soul", calling it "old school for sure, spun fresh". Andy Gill of The Independent
complimented its "Motown mood" and "equally stylish and well-effected impressions of Curtis Mayfield
, Little Walter
and Ray Charles
". Kevin Ritchie of NOW
commended "the electrifying fervour and meticulous musicianship typical of his stage show". BBC Online's Lloyd Bradley praised Saadiq's "handling of melodies, in both the vocals and the playing" and wrote that his "vintage rhythm & blues eclecticism [...] puts you in mind of early P-Funk
's musical hyperactivity". Rolling Stone
writer Jon Dolan noted Saadiq's "tight songwriting" and compared the album to Jimi Hendrix
's 1968 album Electric Ladyland
, calling Stone Rollin "an inspired free-for-all, moving backward and forward from his beloved mid-Sixties — from girl-crazy Chuck Berry to politicized Stevie
".
However, Slant Magazine
's Matthew Cole criticized its "stylistic breadth" and found the album "too reverent in its retro to leave a lasting impression of its own", writing that it is "not devoid of solid tunes, but even the highlights are complacent genre exercises". Mosi Reeves of Spin
wrote that its "retro soul homage is almost too expertly calibrated", but concluded that "Stone Rollins rhythm-and-blues revival can't obscure Saadiq's songwriting talents", calling him "a virtuoso stylist whose finest flourishes lie in the details". Mojo
gave the album four ouf of five stars and found Saadiq's songwriting "clever". Despite viewing his "gentle voice" as a "liability", Jon Caramanica of The New York Times
complimented the album's music and commented that "Saadiq has a keen ear as an arranger". Chicago Sun-Times
writer Thomas Conner gave it three out of four stars and complimented Saadiq's "classicism", adding that "It's formalist, too, though not entirely formal given the sweat-flinging abandon he brings to nearly every recording". Steve Jones of USA Today
gave the album three-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote that Saadiq "deftly fuses the sounds that inspired him with his own musical inventiveness". Los Angeles Times
writer Jeff Weiss commented that "dismissing it as overly familiar obscures the point" and praised Saadiq as "a classicist of the best kind — one who not only carries on tradition but expands it".
In his consumer guide for MSN Music
, critic Robert Christgau
gave Stone Rollin an A– rating, indicating "the kind of garden-variety good record that is the great luxury of musical micromarketing and overproduction". He compared Saadiq's musicianship to that of Prince
, writing that "he plays with himself to beat the band, and makes these 10 tracks bump and pulse. And then you notice even the less pneumatic ones connecting as songs". Ken Capobianco of The Boston Globe
praised his "elastic vocals and versatility" and called the album "a deliciously good set of playful yet engaging songs that nods to the past while sounding thoroughly of the moment". Steve Horowitz of PopMatters
wrote that the album "shows off Saadiq’s genius as a singer, writer, instrumentalist, and producer of modern rhythm and blues that pays homage to its traditions", adding that it does not have "a false step or even a dull note". The Washington Post
s Bill Friskics-Warren found its music "as effortless as it is inspiring" and commended "the abandon with which Saadiq avails himself of his source material — and the verve he brings to both his songwriting and performing". Kenny Herzog of The A.V. Club
gave the album an A– rating and dubbed it Saadiq's "career-finest", stating in conclusion, "The end result is a warm, sometimes reckless, but always deeply moving and wildly creative effort that is absolutely dizzying in the best, most indelible sense".
ranked the album number 41 on its list of Top 50 Albums of 2011. The song "Good Man" was nominated for a Grammy Award
for Best Traditional R&B Performance, set to be presented at the 54th Grammy Awards
in 2012.
, with co-production by Chuck Brungardt.
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by American recording artist Raphael Saadiq
Raphael Saadiq
Raphael Saadiq is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Saadiq has been a standard bearer for "old school" R&B since his early days as a member of the multiplatinum group Tony! Toni! Toné! He also produced songs of such artists as TLC, Joss Stone, D'Angelo, Mary J...
, released March 25, 2011, on Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. Recording sessions for the album took place at Blakeslee Recording Company in Los Angeles during 2009 to 2010. Inspired by the loud, raw sound of his live performances, Saadiq worked with recording engineer and long-time collaborator Chuck Brungardt to produce a grittier, more aggressive sound for the album. Primarily performed by Saadiq, Stone Rollin expands on the classicist, soul music
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
style of his previous 2008 album, The Way I See It
The Way I See It (album)
The Way I See It is the third studio album by American musician Raphael Saadiq, released September 16, 2008 on Columbia Records in the United States. It was also released April 2009 in the United Kingdom. The album debuted at number 19 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 23,000 copies in its...
, with other R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
styles, including funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, and rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
. Music writers have noted the album for its stylistic breadth, groove-based compositions, contemporary detail, varied subject matter, and incorporation of the Mellotron
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...
keyboard.
Initially released in Europe, the album attained international charting
Record chart
A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....
in several countries, including Norway, where it reached its highest chart position. In the United States, it debuted at number 14 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart, selling 21,000 copies in its first week, making it Saadiq's highest-charting release in the US. The album produced three singles, including the US R&B hit "Good Man". Upon its release, Stone Rollin received general acclaim from music critics, earning praise for its classicist style, musical eclecticism, and Saadiq's songwriting. As of May 2011, the album has sold 32,100 copies in the United States. Saadiq promoted the album with a concert tour spanning from March to August 2011, performing shows in North American venues and European music festivals.
Background
Stone Rollin is the follow-up to Saadiq's 2008 album The Way I See ItThe Way I See It (album)
The Way I See It is the third studio album by American musician Raphael Saadiq, released September 16, 2008 on Columbia Records in the United States. It was also released April 2009 in the United Kingdom. The album debuted at number 19 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 23,000 copies in its...
, which featured 1960s Motown Sound-inspired songs with classicist soul music
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
influences. The Way I See It was also an exemplary release of the "classic soul revival" during its peak at the time, a music scene marked by similarly retro-minded work from mainstream artists such as Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse
Amy Jade Winehouse was an English singer-songwriter known for her powerful deep contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres including R&B, soul and jazz. Winehouse's 2003 debut album, Frank, was critically successful in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize...
and Adele
Adele (singer)
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins , known professionally as Adele, is an English singer-songwriter. She was the first recipient of the Brit Awards Critics' Choice and was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2008 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2008...
, independent acts such as Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings are a funk/soul band. They are signed to Daptone Records, where the Dap-Kings are the house band. They are spearheads of a revivalist movement that aims to capture the essence of funk/soul music as it was at its height in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s...
and Mayer Hawthorne
Mayer Hawthorne
Mayer Hawthorne is an American singer, producer, songwriter, arranger, audio engineer, DJ, rapper and multi-instrumentalist based in Los Angeles, California, USA. The stage name "Mayer Hawthorne" is a combination of Cohen's real middle name and the name of the street he grew up on in Michigan...
, and older artists making comebacks such as Al Green
Al Green
Albert Greene , better known as Al Green, is an American gospel and soul music singer. He reached the peak of his popularity in the 1970s, with hit singles such as "You Oughta Be With Me", "I'm Still In Love With You", "Love and Happiness", and "Let's Stay Together"...
and Bettye LaVette
Bettye LaVette
Bettye LaVette is an American soul singer-songwriter who made her first record at sixteen, but achieved only intermittent fame until 2005, with her album, I've Got My Own Hell to Raise...
. In promoting the album, Saadiq broadened his audience demographic and expanded as a touring artist, playing various music festivals throughout Europe and the United States. Along with his material's style, Saadiq himself adopted a classicist soul image, donning old-fashioned attire and performing R&B dance moves at shows. This touring experience influenced him in his creative approach for Stone Rollin, noting the louder, raw sound and general feeling of performing live.
Saadiq has said of his creative intentions with the follow-up, "I’ve never shut my ears to anything, really. It’s not like I’m always looking for things, either, but I can’t close my ears to any music. Any guitar, any drums, any rhythm section— I’ve always been open to those things, trying to understand what makes them work in a song". He was influenced by early rock and roll artists such as Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
and Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
, and has cited blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
musician Howlin' Wolf
Howlin' Wolf
Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....
as an influence on the album's sound, which he described as "bluesy" and "harder" than that of his previous album, with more aggressive tempos. In an interview for BULLETT Magazine, Saadiq explained his idea of the album's title, stating "Stone Rollin basically symbolizes the action of throwing dice and taking chances with life. That's what I've done my whole career—taking chances with different styles of music and making choices that other people would be afraid to take. Stone Rollin means I'm going all the way out there this time".
Recording
Saadiq recorded Stone Rollin at Blakeslee Recording Company, his recording studio complex in Los Angeles, California. He spent approximately one year working on the album, including writing its music and lyrics. He worked on the album's production with recording engineer and long-time collaborator Chuck Brungardt. The two shared an interest in collecting vintage musical gear and studying historic recording techniques, which they had applied in recording The Way I See It. However, for Stone Rollin, they sought to eschew its predecessor's Motown aesthetic for a more eclectic style, in keeping with Saadiq's other musical projects. According to Brungardt, the recording of the project's earlier songs, "Heart Attack", was critical in their decision for the album. The song was recorded during Saadiq's break from touring for The Way I See It and had originally featured that album's sound, with which they were not satisfied. When they revisited the song, Saadiq reconstructed the original recording after stripping track's individually-recorded instrument partPart (music)
1) A part is a strand or melody of music played by an individual instrument or voice within a larger work. Parts may be referred to as an outer part or an inner part . Part-writing is the composition of parts in consideration of harmony and counterpoint...
s, with the exception of the vocals and some of its drums. In an interview for EQ Magazine
NewBay Media
NewBay Media, LLC is a magazine and website publisher founded in 2006 and headquartered in New York City.-Acquisitions:In September 2006, NewBay Media acquired CMP Entertainment Media from United Business Media which yielded Guitar Player, Bass Player, Keyboard, Pro Sound News, Systems Contractor...
, Brungardt said of their approach, "We wanted to evolve the songs, and I wanted to evolve the engineering, as well. On The Way I See It, everything was pretty much tube pre
Preamplifier
A preamplifier is an electronic amplifier that prepares a small electrical signal for further amplification or processing. A preamplifier is often placed close to the sensor to reduce the effects of noise and interference. It is used to boost the signal strength to drive the cable to the main...
's and tube compressors. On this one, I wanted to play around with some of the more solid-state
Solid state (electronics)
Solid-state electronics are those circuits or devices built entirely from solid materials and in which the electrons, or other charge carriers, are confined entirely within the solid material...
gear".
For the majority of the recordings, Saadiq played most of the instruments, including bass, keyboard, guitar, Mellotron
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...
, percussion, and drums, and he also layered
Multitrack recording
Multitrack recording is a method of sound recording that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources to create a cohesive whole...
each recorded instrumental part afterwards. Brungardt used a Neumann U 47
U 47
The U 47 was a large-diaphragm condenser microphone manufactured by Georg Neumann GmbH during the years 1949-1965.The U 47 used the M 7 capsule originally developed for the CMV 3 microphone...
microphone to record each of Saadiq's instrument part. Saadiq recorded his vocals on a dynamic microphone alone in the recording studio's control room, an approach encouraged to him earlier in his career by record producer and audio engineer Gerry Brown
Gerry Brown
Gerry “The Gov.” Brown is a recording engineer and producer based in Los Angeles credited on over 47 Platinum and Gold Records. He has received over 15 Grammy bids, including five nominations for Alicia Keys’ “Songs In A Minor,” a Song of the Year Award for Erykah Badu’s “Love of My Life,” two...
. According to Brungardt, "[Saadiq's] voice benefits from a dynamic mic because it tends to give him more bottom and presence. Plus dynamic mics can sound a little older when pushed". With the songs' guitar parts, Brungardt wanted to create additional distortion in order to produce a grittier, guitar sound for the songs, a stylistic preference Saadiq and him had acquired from listening to a great deal of indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
at the time. He applied several techniques to achieve this sound, including increasing the gain
Gain
In electronics, gain is a measure of the ability of a circuit to increase the power or amplitude of a signal from the input to the output. It is usually defined as the mean ratio of the signal output of a system to the signal input of the same system. It may also be defined on a logarithmic scale,...
on Saadiq's Fender Twin
Fender Twin
The Fender Twin is a guitar amplifier made by Fender. It was introduced in 1952, two years before Fender began selling Stratocaster electric guitars. The amps are known for their characteristically clean tone....
guitar amplifier, using a software plug-in for the recordings in post-production, and re-amp
Re-amp
Reamping is a process often used in multitrack recording in which a recorded signal is routed back out of the editing environment and run through external processing or reverb chamber...
ing Saadiq's guitar parts. In his interview for EQ Magazine, Brungardt discussed using a Massey TapeHead, one of his preferred plug-ins, in the recording process, stating "I’ll use that on a lot of things to get a little more grit. It thickens stuff up nicely if you record something that’s a little too bright. I usually go a lot for darker tones when recording and mixing".
Some of the album's songs were recorded by Saadiq with his live band, which included drummer Lemar Carter, bassist Calvin Turner, and guitarist Rob Bacon. Bacon, who had played with Saadiq since 2002, said of their grittier approach to guitar, "I have relative pitch
Relative pitch
The term relative pitch may denote:* the distance of a musical note from a set point of reference, e.g. "three octaves above middle C"* a musician's ability to identify the intervals between given tones, regardless of their relation to concert pitch * the skill used by singers to correctly sing a...
, as opposed to perfect pitch
Absolute pitch
Absolute pitch , widely referred to as perfect pitch, is the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of an external reference.-Definition:...
, so there'd be times when I'd spend 15 or 20 minutes tuning
Musical tuning
In music, there are two common meanings for tuning:* Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice.* Tuning systems, the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases.-Tuning practice:...
my instrument. Then he'd come in and pick up his guitar and just start playing it however it was left the day before. On one of the tracks I had to play over all this stuff that was out of tune. Raphael was like, 'That's what makes it funky!'". Musical guests such as vocalist Yukimi Nagano
Yukimi Nagano
Yukimi Nagano is a Swedish singer-songwriter. Nagano was born and raised in Gothenburg, Sweden to a Japanese father and Swedish-American mother; she grew up listening to American folk because of her mother, but always had an affinity for R&B.She is the vocalist of Gothenburg-based electronic band...
, keyboardist Larry Dunn
Larry Dunn
Larry Dunn is a keyboardist, musical director and one of the founding members of the music group Earth, Wind, & Fire. Dunn, along with other members of Earth, Wind & Fire were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.-Career:...
, bass player Larry Graham
Larry Graham
Larry Graham, Jr. is an African American bass guitar player, both with the popular and influential psychedelic soul/funk band Sly & the Family Stone, and as the founder and frontman of Graham Central Station...
, keyboardist Amp Fiddler
Amp Fiddler
Joseph "Amp" Fiddler is an American keyboardist, singer, songwriter and record producer from Detroit, Michigan, U.S.. His musical styles include funk, soul, dance and electronica music. He is probably best known for his contributions to the band Enchantment, and as part of George Clinton’s...
, and pedal steel guitarist Robert Randolph also contributed to the album's recording sessions, with Saadiq selecting their parts for certain tracks. The song "Go to Hell" was conceived from one of Amp Fiddler's Mellotron ideas. Saadiq recorded a duet with Larry Graham called "The Perfect Storm", included as a hidden track
Hidden track
In the field of recorded music, a hidden track is a piece of music that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, vinyl record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener...
on the album. He later said of recording with Graham, "I played bass, but I put my bass down [laughs]. The first day I tried to play bass for him, I couldn't even play. I froze three times. He's my all-time idol!".
For several songs, Saadiq incorporated lush orchestration and strings
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
as predominant elements. He worked on the orchestral recording with arranger Paul Riser
Paul Riser
Paul Riser is an American trombonist and Motown musical arranger who was responsible for co-writing and arranging dozens of top ten hit records. His legacy as one of the "Funk Brothers" is similar to that of most of the other "Brothers", as his career has been overlooked and overshadowed by the...
and Gerry Brown at Ocean Way Recording
Ocean Way Recording
Ocean Way Recording is the name of a series of recording studios in Hollywood, California and Nashville, Tennessee. Ocean Way Studios is well known in the recording industry due to the award-winning albums that were produced there....
's Studio B in Los Angeles, while the songs' horn
Horn section
In music, a horn section can refer to several groups of musicians. It can refer to the musicians in a symphony orchestra who play the horn . In a British-style brass band it refers to the tenor horn players. In popular music, it can also refer to a small group of wind instrumentalists who augment a...
parts were mostly recorded at the Blakeslee studio. He later explained his approach for each song's orchestration, "Instead of just having a string section off in the background. I wanted on certain songs for the strings to be more expressive, so I talked to Paul Riser about the titles and what I was going for in the songs. I’d say, 'For this word, I want it to be orchestrated this way. When I listen to the song 'Go to Hell', I want to hear the winds in the valley rushing into me'". Brown also worked with Saadiq on the album's tracking at Blakeslee. The album was mixed
Audio mixing (recorded music)
In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
using Pro Tools
Pro Tools
Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation platform for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, developed and manufactured by Avid Technology. It is widely used by professionals throughout the audio industries for recording and editing in music production, film scoring, film, and television...
in Blakeslee Recording Company's Studio A, with the SSL
Solid State Logic
Solid State Logic is a manufacturer of high-end mixing consoles and recording studio hardware headquartered in Begbroke, Oxfordshire, UK.- Company information :...
4000 used mostly for monitoring, and using the SSL 9000 in the "C" room. During mixing, Brungardt used equalization filters such as a McDSP FilterBank plug-in and Waves Renaissance EQ
Waves Audio
Waves Audio Ltd. is a developer and supplier of professional audio signal processing technologies and audio effects, used in recording, mixing, mastering, post production, surround, live, and broadcast sound...
to handle excessive high end in spots, and he utilized other equipment for additional sound effects, including a Line 6 Echo Farm, a Roland Space Echo
Roland RE-201
The Roland RE-201, commonly known as the Space Echo, is an audio analog delay effects unit produced by the Roland Corporation.A tape echo device records incoming audio to a loop of magnetic tape, then replays the audio over a series of several playback heads before it is erased again by new...
, and an Echoplex clone
Echoplex
The Echoplex is a tape delay effect, first made in 1959. Designed by Mike Battle, the Echoplex set a standard for the effect in the 1960s and was used by some of the most notable guitar players of the era; original Echoplexes are highly sought after....
.
Music and style
The album expands on the Motown-inspired material of Saadiq's previous album and includes various other R&BRhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
styles. Along with mid-tempo soul songs, Stone Rollin features styles such as early R&B-rooted rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
-inspiring funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, Chess Records
Chess Records
Chess Records was an American record label based in Chicago, Illinois. It specialized in blues, R&B, soul, gospel music, early rock and roll, and occasional jazz releases....
-blues, and the more expansive orchestral sound of post-Detroit Motown and 1970s Philadelphia soul
Philadelphia soul
Philadelphia soul, sometimes called the Philadelphia Sound or Sweet Philly, is a style of soul music characterized by funk influences and lush instrumental arrangements, often featuring sweeping strings and piercing horns. The subtle sound of a glockenspiel can often be heard in the background of...
. Disc jockey Chris Douridas
Christopher Douridas
Chris Douridas is a popular DJ and musical tastemaker at Santa Monica, California, radio station KCRW, where he hosts a two hour program showcasing progressive new music. He is also a filmmaker, actor, television presenter, and a three-time Grammy-nominated producer of soundtracks and music...
describes Saadiq's sound as "a hybrid form that's rooted in these familiar elements from classic soul but recontextualized with a modern sound". Nick Butler of Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic, or simply Sputnik, is a music website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites...
denotes the songs as "belters" and "guitar-heavy", and wrote of its musical influences, "While Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
informs the sound of this more than anybody, it's a very early-'70s sounding album on the whole [...] but there are influences that go back even further than that - Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
and Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
in particular inform some of this record's more energetic moments." Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
journalist Mikael Wood writes of the album's sound and production, "Where Saadiq's previous efforts luxuriated in the layering and the fine-tuning made possible by modern recording gear, Stone Rollin' presents a rawer, rowdier soul-rock sound modeled after his energetic stage show".
Music writer Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
denotes the album's sound to be less hook
Hook (music)
A hook is a musical idea, often a short riff, passage, or phrase, that is used in popular music to make a song appealing and to "catch the ear of the listener". The term generally applies to popular music, especially rock music, hip hop, dance music, and pop. In these genres, the hook is often...
-oriented than that of The Way I See It, and views Saadiq's compositions as characterized with "groove rather than song". Andy Kellman of Allmusic writes that the songs are "tied together by the Mellotron, a vintage keyboard — commonly associated with psychedelic
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
and progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
recordings, but not foreign to soul — that evokes diseased flutes and wheezing strings", adding that "Saadiq tends to use the instrument for shading". Music journalist Jim DeRogatis
Jim DeRogatis
James "Jim" DeRogatis is an American music critic and co-host of Sound Opinions. DeRogatis has written articles for magazines such as Spin, Guitar World and Modern Drummer, and for fifteen years was the pop music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.He joined Columbia College Chicago as a full-time...
shares a similar sentiment and writes of Saadiq's stylistic change, "There is a little less Motown gloss this time around and a little more rock grit in Saadiq’s grooves, heavy on the Sly Stone
Sly Stone
Sly Stone is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, most famous for his role as frontman for Sly & the Family Stone, a band which played a critical role in the development of soul, funk and psychedelia in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of...
(witness the opening 'Heart Attack'), late '50s/early '60s Isley Brothers
The Isley Brothers
The Isley Brothers are a highly influential, successful and long-running American music group consisting of different line-ups of six brothers, and a brother-in-law, Chris Jasper...
(the joyful 'Radio'), and Ray Charles ('Day Dreams'), to say nothing of the skillful use of Mellotron orchestrations as a connecting thread throughout the disc, sort of like the Moody Blues
The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues are an English rock band. Among their innovations was a fusion with classical music, most notably in their 1967 album Days of Future Passed....
suddenly finding the funk ('The Answer')." Steve Horowitz of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
finds the songs' subject matter to be assorted and comments that Saadiq "personalizes each song so they seem connected as just the many aspects of one man’s existence and experience".
Content
The opening track, "Heart Attack", features elements of rock and roll and soul music, incorporating driving bass, reverberating rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
, a four-on-the-floor drum beat, high-pitched vocals, and tambourine-accented groove. The song is an homage to one of Saadiq's musical idols, Sly Stone, and was inspired by Sly and the Family Stone songs "Dance to the Music
Dance to the Music (song)
"Dance to the Music" is a 1968 hit single by the influential soul/funk/rock band Sly & the Family Stone for the Epic/CBS Records label. It was the first single by the band to reach the Billboard Pop Singles Top 10, peaking at #8 and the first to popularize the band's sound, which would be emulated...
" and "M'Lady". Its burbling background vocals are adapted from the former song. Saadiq said of his creative intentions with the song, "I wanted the album to start out with that sense of urgency, that global soul and rock & roll feel". Music journalist Andy Gill writes that it "explosively replicates the high-energy impact of Sly & The Family Stone". Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic, or simply Sputnik, is a music website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites...
's Nick Butler calls the song "a textbook study in blending rock and soul without diluting the power of either." The gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
-styled "Go to Hell" contains spiritual overtones and harmonious orchestration and choir vocals. The song's line "I’m going to be a warrior of everything I say" is an allusion to Saadiq's adopted surname, which means "man of his word" in Arabic. The Chuck Berry-inspired "Radio" features rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
guitar riffs and twelve-bar blues. The song's lyrics present a disapproving woman as the personification of mainstream radio
Music radio
Music radio is a radio format in which music is the main broadcast content. After television replaced old time radio's dramatic content, music formats became dominant in many countries...
: "I met this girl named Radio / said her signal was low / she wasn't getting my sound". According to Saadiq, the line "I tried to move away / she found me the very next day" alludes to his affinity for his musical roots and those of rock and roll.
"Over You" is a pleading ballad that incorporates Wall of Sound
Wall of Sound
The Wall of Sound is a music production technique for pop and rock music recordings developed by record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, California, during the early 1960s...
-styled strings, crashing, big-beat
Beat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll, doo wop, skiffle, R&B and soul...
drums played in double-time
Double-time
In music and dance, double-time is a type of meter and tempo or rhythmic feel. It is also associated with specific time signatures such as 2/2. Contrast with half time....
, and psychedlic influences. The album's title track is an ode to curvaceous, full-figured women, with lusty lyrics and declamatory vocals by Saadiq. It features bluesy harmonica, funky guitar riffs, and a sound described by Saadiq as "dirty, more of like a Chicago Blues
Chicago blues
The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...
, Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
dirty record [...] the bluesiest joint" on the album. "Day Dreams" is about spending above one's means to satisfy a woman and was inspired by Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
and Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
. The song incorporates rockabilly-shuffle elements, a shuffling Bo Diddley-like backbeat, chicken scratch
Chicken scratch
Chicken scratch is a kind of dance music developed by the Tohono O'odham people. The genre evolved out of acoustic fiddle bands in southern Arizona, in the Sonoran desert...
-styled guitar by Saadiq, and steel guitar
Steel guitar
Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. Developed in Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a steel guitar is usually positioned horizontally; strings are plucked with one hand, while the other hand changes the pitch of one or more strings with the use...
slide
Slide (guitar technique)
A slide is a legato guitar technique where the player sounds one note, and then moves their finger up or down the fretboard to another fret. If done properly, the other note should also sound....
work by Robert Randolph. "Movin' Down the Line", an ode to a love unrequited
Unrequited love
Unrequited love is love that is not openly reciprocated or understood as such, even though reciprocation is usually deeply desired. The beloved may or may not be aware of the admirer's deep affections...
, features mellow horns, jangling guitar, heavy bass lines, and a swelling string and piano conclusion
Conclusion (music)
In music, the conclusion is the ending of a composition and may take the form of a coda or outro.Pieces using sonata form typically use the recapitulation to conclude a piece, providing closure through the repetition of thematic material from the exposition in the tonic key...
. Music writer Lloyd Bradley
Lloyd Bradley
Lloyd Bradley is a British music writer.Born in London, Bradley discovered Jamaican music in his teenage years, while going out in the North London based sound systems and created his own named Dark Star System in the end of the sixties.He worked on several in their early years Q Magazine and...
writes that the song exemplifies the album's combination of classicist style and contemporary detail, stating "It has every bit of digital snap needed to succeed among today’s sounds; but Saadiq’s masterful use of a big brass section lurking w-a-a-ay into the background picks the tune up and puts it down in a completely different era. The song turns out both laidback and urgent at the same time, and is utterly irrepressible for it".
Containing a psychedelic funk sound, "Just Don't" has its narrator expressing his dejection as he realizes his woman has moved on. The song features guest vocals by Yukimi Nagano and an extended Moog
Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
solo by Larry Dunn. "Good Man" contains plaintive lyrics and a hook co-written and sung by vocalist Taura Stinson. Her lines for the hook, including "I'm a good man / Food on the table / Working two jobs / Ready, willing, and able", contrast Saadiq's anguished narration of a man mourning his woman's betrayal. Music writer Andy Kellman cites it as "the most compelling song on the album", describing it as "a mini-epic of trouble-man soul, somewhere along the lines of Ohio Players
Ohio Players
The Ohio Players were an American funk and R&B band, most popular in the 1970s. They are best known for their double #1 hit songs "Fire" and "Love Rollercoaster".- Biography :...
' 'Our Love Has Died' and a missing cut off David Porter
David Porter (musician)
David Porter is an American soul musician. Porter is best known as the songwriting and production partner of Isaac Hayes at Stax Records during the 1960s...
's Victim of the Joke? [...] its elegant misery is instantly striking, enhanced by Taura Stinson's pouty guest vocal". The album's closing track, "The Answer", features a wistful, jazz-funk
Jazz-funk
Jazz-funk is a sub-genre of jazz music characterized by a strong back beat , electrified sounds, and often, the presence of the first electronic analog synthesizers...
sound, with marching snare drums and muffled horns, and a socio-political tone. Its lyrics express a call for collective and individual responsibility. Saadiq discussed his inspiration for the song in an interview for BULLETT Magazine, stating "I always have a song similar to that on my albums. I was just thinking about growing up in Oakland and all the older people and mentors who helped me out at the time. So I just wanted to throw it back and say thank you, and tell all the kids out there to listen to the people trying to guide them".
Release and promotion
Stone Rollin was released by Columbia RecordsColumbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
and distributed by Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....
. Originally scheduled for March 22, 2011, it was released on March 25 in continental European countries such as the Netherlands, France, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, and Sweden. The album was subsequently released in the United Kingdom on April 4, in Germany on April 22, in the United States on May 10, and in Australia on May 20. On December 16, 2010, Saadiq hosted a listening party at his recording studio and premiered songs from the album to public radio station KCRW
KCRW
KCRW is a public radio station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, carrying a mix of National Public Radio news, talk radio and freeform music format. The general manager of KCRW is Jennifer Ferro...
. On January 20, he previewed the album in a live set at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco, performing six songs with a five-piece backing band. On February 3, he held an exclusive listening session at the Royalton Hotel
Royalton Hotel
The Royalton Hotel is a hotel in at 44 West 44th Street, midtown Manhattan, New York City, USA.The building was built in 1898 as the exclusive residential Hotel Royalton. The firm of Rossiter & Wright served as the architects, and the contractor was E. F. Dodson & Company...
in New York City, performing six songs with an acoustic trio of guitar, bass, and percussion. Saadiq and his band performed on a live broadcast of KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic
Morning Becomes Eclectic
Morning Becomes Eclectic is a three-hour adult album alternative radio program first aired in 1977 and broadcast live every weekday from KCRW in Santa Monica, California. The show's name is a play on the Eugene O'Neill trilogy of plays, Mourning Becomes Electra.The show is hosted by Jason Bentley,...
program on March 18. He also performed songs from the album for the Red Bull Live Sessions
Red Bull
Red Bull is an energy drink sold by the Austrian Red Bull GmbH, created in 1987 by the Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz. In terms of market share, Red Bull is the most popular energy drink in the world, with 3 billion cans sold each year. Dietrich Mateschitz was inspired by an already...
webcast on March 26. On April 4, Saadiq performed the song "Just Don't" on The Tavis Smiley Show
The Tavis Smiley Show
The Tavis Smiley Show is an American public broadcasting radio talk show. A television show, simply titled Tavis Smiley, is a late night television program on Public Broadcasting Service . Both shows feature Tavis Smiley as host....
, and on April 5, he appeared on Later... with Jools Holland in promotion of the album. Saadiq headlined an exclusive show at the O2 Shepherds Bush Empire in London on April 28. On May 12, he performed an outdoor set on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and a five-song set on BET
Black Entertainment Television
Black Entertainment Television is an American, Viacom-owned cable network based in Washington, D.C.. Currently viewed in more than 90 million homes worldwide, it is the most prominent television network targeting young Black-American audiences. The network was launched on January 25, 1980, by its...
's 106 & Park
106 & Park
106 & Park is a Top Ten Hip-Hop and R&B music video show, set up in a countdown format, that airs weekdays at 6:00 PM on BET . Since its inception, it was the network's #1 rated show...
. In the week preceding its US release, Stone Rollin was made available for streaming
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
at NPR Music
NPR Music
NPR Music launched in November 2007 to present public radio music programming and original editorial content for music discovery. The Web site is a project of National Public Radio, a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to 797...
.
Three singles were released in promotion of the album. Lead single
Lead single
A lead single is usually the first single released by a musician or a band before the release of its home album.During the era of the grammophone record, all music arrived in the marketplace as what is now termed a single, one potential hit song backed by an additional song of generally less...
"Radio" was released on December 21, 2010, as a digital download
Music download
A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...
. Its music video premiered on January 6 and features imagery reflecting both retro and modern styles. The second single "Good Man" was released on February 15. It reached number 52 and spent 16 weeks on the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul,...
chart. It also reached number 20 on the Billboard Adult R&B
Urban Adult Contemporary
Urban adult contemporary is the name for a format of radio music, similar to an urban contemporary format. Radio stations using this format usually would not have rap music on their playlists. The format was designed by Barry Mayo when he, Lee S. Simonson and Bill Pearson organized Broadcast...
. Premiered on February 8, its music video was filmed by Isaiah Seret and features fashion model Yaya DaCosta and actor Chad Coleman
Chad Coleman
Chad Coleman is an American film and television actor. He is best known for playing the character Dennis "Cutty" Wise from The Wire.-Life and career:...
. Saadiq said of the video's storyline, "'Good Man' tells the story I've seen many times in my own life. Everything around that man can be bad, his occupation, lifestyle, friends, but underneath all of it, he is...a good man". The third single, the title track, was released on March 22. It peaked at number 38 on the US Triple-A
Adult album alternative
Adult album alternative is a radio format. A spinoff from the album-oriented rock format, its roots trace to the 1960s and 1970s from the earlier freeform and progressive formats....
chart. Its music video was directed by Dori Oskowitz and premiered through Saadiq's Vevo
Vevo
Vevo is a music video website. It is a joint venture among Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Abu Dhabi Media with EMI licensing its content to the group without taking an ownership stake. The service was launched officially on December 8, 2009...
channel on March 28. Set in an all-female social club, the video features Saadiq and his band in a low-key, impromptu performance of the song, as a sexually-attractive woman enters the club. Saadiq performed "Stone Rollin on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jay Leno that initially aired from May 25, 1992 to May 29, 2009, and resumed production on March 1, 2010. The fourth incarnation of the Tonight Show franchise made its debut on May 25, 1992, three days following Johnny...
on March 21, and on Conan on May 16. A music video for "Day Dreams", starring actor Danny Pudi
Danny Pudi
Danny Pudi is an American actor, best known for his role as Abed Nadir on the NBC comedy series Community.-Early years:Pudi, who is of Indian and Polish descent, was born and raised in Chicago and grew up speaking Polish...
, was directed by Bret McKenzie
Bret McKenzie
Bret Peter Tarrant McKenzie is a comedian, actor, musician and producer, best known for being one half of the Grammy Award winning musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords along with Jemaine Clement....
and premiered by Hulu
Hulu
Hulu is a website and over-the-top subscription service offering ad-supported on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, webisodes and other new media, trailers, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage from NBC, Fox, ABC, and Obstacle on October 20th 2011 Nickelodeon and CBS and many other...
on August 11.
Saadiq also promoted Stone Rollin with a North American spring tour, performing a series of concerts during March to June 2011. It began on March 15 at the House of Blues
House of Blues
House of Blues is a chain of 13 live music concert halls and restaurants in major markets throughout the United States. House of Blues first location was in Cambridge's Harvard Square. It was opened in 1992 by Isaac Tigrett, co-founder of Hard Rock Cafe, and Dan Aykroyd, star of The Blues Brothers...
in Dallas and concluded on June 8 at Stubb's in Austin, Texas. Some concert dates featured electronic music duo Quadron
Quadron
Quadron is a Danish duo consisting of singer Coco Maja Hastrup Karshøj and musician/producer Robin Hannibal. The group calls itself and the music they provide, electronic soul....
as an opening act. The tour included performances at music festivals such as South by Southwest
South by Southwest
South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...
and Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is a three-day annual music and arts festival, organized by Goldenvoice and held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, in the Inland Empire's Coachella Valley...
, for which Saadiq played songs from The Way I See It and Stone Rollin, as well as unreleased material. In reproducing the album's recorded music onstage, he performed with his eight-piece band, which included bass player Calvin Turner, drummers Lemar Carter and Charles Jones, guitarists Rob Bacon and Josh Smith, and backing singers Erika Jerry and BJ Kemp. In contrast to his touring for The Way I See It, Saadiq did not include a horn section for certain shows and played on guitar for a more rock-oriented sound. While travelling between concert dates, Saadiq and his bandmates watched music documentaries for inspiration, including a documentary on Bob Marley & The Wailers
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Bob Marley & The Wailers were a Jamaican reggae, ska and rocksteady band formed by Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer in 1963. Additional members were Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, Cherry Smith and Aston and Carlton Barrett...
and the 1973 film Wattstax
Wattstax
Wattstax is a 1973 documentary film by Mel Stuart that focused on the 1972 Wattstax music festival and the African American community of Watts in Los Angeles, California. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Documentary Film in 1974...
. He expanded his touring in promotion of the album into August 2011, with concerts alternating between North American headlining dates and European music festivals.
Commercial performance
In the United Kingdom, the album debuted at number 84 on the UK Albums ChartUK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
in the week ending April 16, 2011. It also entered at number eight on the R&B Albums Chart
UK R&B Chart
The Official UK R&B Chart is a forty-position R&B/Hip-Hop chart compiled by The Official UK Charts Company. Although the chart does not receive any airplay, its compilation is viewed on BBC Radio 1's website and publications such as ChartsPlus and Music Week...
in the UK, on which it ultimately charted for five weeks. In its second week, the album dropped to number 89 on the UK Albums Chart. It fell off the chart in its third week. The album debuted at number 58 in Switzerland, number 73 in the Netherlands, number 26 in France, number 82 in Canada, and number eight in Norway. In its second week, Stone Rollin moved up to number seven, its peak position on Norway's VG-lista
VG-lista
VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by...
chart. The album charted for five weeks in the Netherlands, nine weeks in France, four weeks in Norway, and seven weeks in Switzerland.
Upon its release in the United States, the album debuted at number 14 on the US Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart, with first-week domestic sales of 21,000 copies. It is Saadiq's highest-charting album on the Billboard 200. The album also entered at number four on Billboard
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
s R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...
and at number 13 on its Digital Albums chart. It sold 10,500 copies in its second week of release. As of May 2011, Stone Rollin has sold 32,100 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada...
. It ultimately spent eight weeks on the Billboard 200 and nine weeks on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.
Critical response
Stone Rollin received general acclaim from music criticMusic criticism
See also Music journalism for reporting on classical and popular music in the media.The Oxford Companion to Music defines music criticism as 'the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres'. In this...
s. At Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 86, based on 20 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Allmusic editor Andy Kellman gave it four-and-a-half out of five stars and commented that "The album does not merely transcend period-piece
Period piece
-Setting:In the performing arts, a period piece is a work set in a particular era. This informal term covers all countries, all periods and all genres...
status. It’s the high point of Saadiq’s career, his exceptional output with Tony! Toni! Toné!
Tony! Toni! Toné!
Tony! Toni! Toné! is an American Soul/R&B group from Oakland, California, popular during the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s. During the band's heyday, it was composed of D'wayne Wiggins on lead vocals and guitar, his brother Raphael Saadiq on lead vocals and bass, and their cousin Timothy...
included". Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
s Brad Wete noted "elements of blithe Stonesish rock" and "'60s soul", calling it "old school for sure, spun fresh". Andy Gill of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
complimented its "Motown mood" and "equally stylish and well-effected impressions of Curtis Mayfield
Curtis Mayfield
Curtis Lee Mayfield was an American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer.He is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly...
, Little Walter
Little Walter
Little Walter, born Marion Walter Jacobs , was an American blues harmonica player, whose revolutionary approach to his instrument has earned him comparisons to Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix, for innovation and impact on succeeding generations...
and Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
". Kevin Ritchie of NOW
NOW (magazine)
Now is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Canada. It was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein. Now is an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage....
commended "the electrifying fervour and meticulous musicianship typical of his stage show". BBC Online's Lloyd Bradley praised Saadiq's "handling of melodies, in both the vocals and the playing" and wrote that his "vintage rhythm & blues eclecticism [...] puts you in mind of early P-Funk
Parliament-Funkadelic
Parliament-Funkadelic is a funk, soul and rock music collective headed by George Clinton. Their style has been dubbed P-Funk. Collectively the group has existed under various names since the 1960s and has been known for top-notch musicianship, politically charged lyrics, outlandish concept albums...
's musical hyperactivity". Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
writer Jon Dolan noted Saadiq's "tight songwriting" and compared the album to Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
's 1968 album Electric Ladyland
Electric Ladyland
Electric Ladyland is the third and final album of new material by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, released in October 1968 on Reprise Records, catalogue 2RS 6307. It is the only Hendrix studio album professionally produced under his supervision. It topped the Billboard 200 album chart for two weeks in...
, calling Stone Rollin "an inspired free-for-all, moving backward and forward from his beloved mid-Sixties — from girl-crazy Chuck Berry to politicized Stevie
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...
".
However, Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
's Matthew Cole criticized its "stylistic breadth" and found the album "too reverent in its retro to leave a lasting impression of its own", writing that it is "not devoid of solid tunes, but even the highlights are complacent genre exercises". Mosi Reeves of Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
wrote that its "retro soul homage is almost too expertly calibrated", but concluded that "Stone Rollins rhythm-and-blues revival can't obscure Saadiq's songwriting talents", calling him "a virtuoso stylist whose finest flourishes lie in the details". Mojo
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
gave the album four ouf of five stars and found Saadiq's songwriting "clever". Despite viewing his "gentle voice" as a "liability", Jon Caramanica of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
complimented the album's music and commented that "Saadiq has a keen ear as an arranger". Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
writer Thomas Conner gave it three out of four stars and complimented Saadiq's "classicism", adding that "It's formalist, too, though not entirely formal given the sweat-flinging abandon he brings to nearly every recording". Steve Jones of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
gave the album three-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote that Saadiq "deftly fuses the sounds that inspired him with his own musical inventiveness". Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
writer Jeff Weiss commented that "dismissing it as overly familiar obscures the point" and praised Saadiq as "a classicist of the best kind — one who not only carries on tradition but expands it".
In his consumer guide for MSN Music
MSN Music
MSN Music was a part of the MSN web services. It delivered music news, music videos, spotlights on new music, artist information, and live performances of artists. In 2004, Microsoft created an MSN Music download store to compete with Apple's iTunes Music Store, though its sales in comparison were...
, critic Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
gave Stone Rollin an A– rating, indicating "the kind of garden-variety good record that is the great luxury of musical micromarketing and overproduction". He compared Saadiq's musicianship to that of Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
, writing that "he plays with himself to beat the band, and makes these 10 tracks bump and pulse. And then you notice even the less pneumatic ones connecting as songs". Ken Capobianco of The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
praised his "elastic vocals and versatility" and called the album "a deliciously good set of playful yet engaging songs that nods to the past while sounding thoroughly of the moment". Steve Horowitz of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
wrote that the album "shows off Saadiq’s genius as a singer, writer, instrumentalist, and producer of modern rhythm and blues that pays homage to its traditions", adding that it does not have "a false step or even a dull note". The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
s Bill Friskics-Warren found its music "as effortless as it is inspiring" and commended "the abandon with which Saadiq avails himself of his source material — and the verve he brings to both his songwriting and performing". Kenny Herzog of The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
gave the album an A– rating and dubbed it Saadiq's "career-finest", stating in conclusion, "The end result is a warm, sometimes reckless, but always deeply moving and wildly creative effort that is absolutely dizzying in the best, most indelible sense".
Accolades
UncutUNCUT (magazine)
Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
ranked the album number 41 on its list of Top 50 Albums of 2011. The song "Good Man" was nominated for a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Traditional R&B Performance, set to be presented at the 54th Grammy Awards
54th Grammy Awards
The 54th Annual Grammy Awards will be held on February 12, 2012, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. It will be broadcasted on CBS. Nominations were announced on November 30, 2011 on prime-time television as part of "The GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live! – Countdown to Music's Biggest Night", a...
in 2012.
Track listing
All tracks were produced by Raphael SaadiqRaphael Saadiq
Raphael Saadiq is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Saadiq has been a standard bearer for "old school" R&B since his early days as a member of the multiplatinum group Tony! Toni! Toné! He also produced songs of such artists as TLC, Joss Stone, D'Angelo, Mary J...
, with co-production by Chuck Brungardt.
- Track 10 is followed by a hidden trackHidden trackIn the field of recorded music, a hidden track is a piece of music that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, vinyl record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener...
, known as "The Perfect Storm".
Musicians
- Mark Adams – horn
- Sarah Bach – horn
- Rob Bacon – guitar
- Brian Benning – violin
- Robert Brosseau – violin
- Alex BudmanAlex BudmanAlex Budman is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger from San Francisco, California, USA. He mainly plays and composes jazz music. He has played with a variety of groups. His current group is called the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra...
– woodwind - Mark Cargill – violin
- Carl Lemar Carter – drums, snare drums
- Giovanna Clayton – celli
- Dan Foreno – trumpet
- Jeff Driskill – saxophone, woodwind
- Assa Drori – violin
- Erika Duke – cello
- Larry DunnLarry DunnLarry Dunn is a keyboardist, musical director and one of the founding members of the music group Earth, Wind, & Fire. Dunn, along with other members of Earth, Wind & Fire were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.-Career:...
– piano - Karen Elaine – viola
- Garrett Ellis – alto saxophone
- Charles Evertt – violin
- Amp FiddlerAmp FiddlerJoseph "Amp" Fiddler is an American keyboardist, singer, songwriter and record producer from Detroit, Michigan, U.S.. His musical styles include funk, soul, dance and electronica music. He is probably best known for his contributions to the band Enchantment, and as part of George Clinton’s...
– Mellotron - Samuel Formicola – viola
- Todd French – cello
- Miguel GandelmanMiguel GandelmanMiguel Gandelman born Miguel Costa Gandelman is a musician, composer and producer based out of Los Angeles, CA.- Early life :...
– tenor saxophone - Alex Gorlovsky – violin
- Maurice Grants – cello
- Dan HigginsDan HigginsDan Higgins is an American saxophone and woodwind player. He has worked with such artists as Aerosmith, Stevie Wonder, Neil Diamond, Al Jarreau, Maroon 5, Kenny Loggins, Barry Manilow, Elton John, Go West, The Temptations, Lionel Richie, Joe Cocker and Eros Ramazzotti. He's also got over 300 motion...
– saxophone - Johannes Joergensen – guitar
- Vahe Karykian – celli
- Karolina Kaziemiec – viola
- B.J. Kemp – snare drums
- Harry Kim – trumpet
- Paul Klintworth – horn
- Johanna Krejci – violin
- Gina Kronstadt – violin
- Gayle Levant – harp
- Jon Lewis – trumpet
- Darrell MansfieldDarrell MansfieldDarrell Mansfield is an American gospel/blues musician.-Biography:Mansfield got his musical start in 1974, releasing his first album Gentle Faith in 1976. He later formed the Darrell Mansfield Band...
– harmonica - Jean Marinelli – horn
- Miguel Martinez – celli
- Joe Meyer – horn
- Dennis Molchan – violin
- Raymond Monteiro – trumpet
- Jorge Moraga – viola
- Yukimi NaganoYukimi NaganoYukimi Nagano is a Swedish singer-songwriter. Nagano was born and raised in Gothenburg, Sweden to a Japanese father and Swedish-American mother; she grew up listening to American folk because of her mother, but always had an affinity for R&B.She is the vocalist of Gothenburg-based electronic band...
– vocals - Stephanie O'Keefe – horn
- Monet Owens – background vocals
- Robert Randolph – steel guitar
- Paul RiserPaul RiserPaul Riser is an American trombonist and Motown musical arranger who was responsible for co-writing and arranging dozens of top ten hit records. His legacy as one of the "Funk Brothers" is similar to that of most of the other "Brothers", as his career has been overlooked and overshadowed by the...
– conductor, horn arrangements, orchestral arrangements, string arrangements - Kathleen Robertson – violin
- Anatoly Rosinsky – violin
- Robin Ross – viola
- Raphael SaadiqRaphael SaadiqRaphael Saadiq is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Saadiq has been a standard bearer for "old school" R&B since his early days as a member of the multiplatinum group Tony! Toni! Toné! He also produced songs of such artists as TLC, Joss Stone, D'Angelo, Mary J...
– bass, clavinet, composer, drums, guitar, horn arrangements, Mellotron, percussion, producer, tambourine, vocals - Rob Schaer – trumpet
- Harry Shirinian – viola
- Haim Shtrum – violin
- Taura Stinson – composer, vocals
- Lesa Terry – violin
- JoAnn Tominaga – concert master
- Calvin Turner – bass, snare drums, horn arrangements
- Wa Wa Watson – guitar
- Elizabeth Wilson – violin
- Rodney Wirtz – viola
- John Wittenberg – violin
- Jorge Wittenberg – viola
- Shari Zippert – viola, violin
Production
- Damien Alexander – A&R
- Lauren Barford – production coordination
- Mathieu Bitton – art direction, package design
- Gerry "The Gov" BrownGerry BrownGerry “The Gov.” Brown is a recording engineer and producer based in Los Angeles credited on over 47 Platinum and Gold Records. He has received over 15 Grammy bids, including five nominations for Alicia Keys’ “Songs In A Minor,” a Song of the Year Award for Erykah Badu’s “Love of My Life,” two...
– engineer - Chuck Brungardt – engineer, mixing, co-producer
- Karen Console – A&R
- Bernie GrundmanBernie Grundman-Biography:He is most known for his mastering work and his studio, Bernie Grundman Mastering, which he opened in 1983 in Hollywood. The studio, which includes engineers Chris Bellman, Patricia Sullivan and Brian Gardner, mastered 37 projects which received Grammy Award nominations in 2005.Grundman...
– mastering
- Michelle Holme – art direction
- Marlon Marcel – assistant engineer, engineer
- Alex Nakanishi – personal assistant
- Alex Prager – photography
- Ricardo Ribeiro – assistant engineer
- Wesley Seidman – assistant engineer
- Mark Williams – A&R
Charts
| Chart (2011) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Canadian Albums Chart Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS... |
82 |
| Dutch Albums Chart MegaCharts MegaCharts is responsible for the composition and exploitation of a broad collection of official charts in the Netherlands, of which the Mega Top 50 and the Mega Album Top 100 are the most known ones. Mega Charts also provides information to the Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, of which the Dutch Top... |
38 |
| French Albums Chart Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique The Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique is the inter-professional organization which protects the interests of the French record industry... |
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| Norwegian Albums Chart VG-lista VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by... |
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| Swiss Albums Chart Swiss Music Charts The Swiss Music Charts are Switzerland's main music sales charts. The charts are a record of the highest-selling singles and albums in various genres in Switzerland.The Swiss Charts include:* Singles Top 75... |
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| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
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| UK R&B Albums UK R&B Chart The Official UK R&B Chart is a forty-position R&B/Hip-Hop chart compiled by The Official UK Charts Company. Although the chart does not receive any airplay, its compilation is viewed on BBC Radio 1's website and publications such as ChartsPlus and Music Week... |
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| US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
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| US Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999... |
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External links
- Stone Rollin' at DiscogsDiscogsDiscogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...
- Stone Rollin' at MetacriticMetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...