A longtime solo performer and member of Neil Diamond’s touring band since 1976, King Errisson is one of those musicians everyone has heard without knowing it. He commands immense respect from music devotees. His talents exert surprising influence over a handful of genres and styles, particularly modern hip-hop, and Errisson’s own recording history has developed a great deal since his initial emergence into the popular music scene. His career has seen tenures working with iconic figures like Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, and The Temptations, to name a few, and featured membership in The Incredible Bongo Band.
His most recent career trajectory, however, has found King Errisson writing songs that are often hybrids incorporating jazz, funk, and Caribbean flavored pop to entertaining effect. His latest single “One Love Shines” contains a positive, uplifting message that never sounds forced or strains to connect with listeners. Instead, it embodies the musical experiences of a lifetime in one extraordinarily conceived and well-turned performance.
This is vigorous, spirited R&B with a notably loping rhythm that helps hook listeners in even deeper. Running a little over three minutes is an ideal length for this tune as it provides ample opportunity for Errisson’s singing and arranging talents to make equal impact on the audience. There are no pronounced instrumental breaks and the second half features a tasteful musical shift from the dominant motif that mixes in the surprising influence of gospel through the song’s lyrical content.
The lyrics are an element of the presentation often getting short shrift in this genre, but that isn’t the case at all in King Errisson’s songwriting. His lyrics for “One Love Shines” are refreshingly free of the empty histrionics we commonly hear in this sort of song and demonstrate an understated flair quite worthy of the singing and music alike.
The horns are a nice touch and are used well by adding well timed flourishes to the song akin to vivid brushstrokes adding colorful strands to the songwriting. The drumming for the song definitely deserves mention thanks to the consistently live snap that sets a tone from the first and gives Errisson’s singing a strong percussive pulse to position his voice around. The rhythm section performance, on the whole, is the musical foundation of “One Love Shines” and allows the brass, guitar, and singing truly prospers thanks to the trail they blaze for the other players.
King Errisson’s “One Love Shines” is an ever timely reminder of what an experienced and creatively vibrant songwriting talent is capable of and hopefully heralds a new day for this veteran artist who has already added so much to some of the best music recorded and performed in a half-century plus. It would likely be easy for King Errisson, this late in his career, to content himself supporting high paid acts like he has with Neil Diamond, but let’s be grateful that he has a voice demanding and deserving to be heard.
Find more King Errisson HERE
More music on SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/50F28iPOYpv9dDs0zCVoga
-review by Jason Hillenburg
