Rewind The Clock

It's not every day that legendary musicians of the past who continue to pave the way for the future praise artists of today's generation on their debut work, regarding it as nostalgic and reminiscent to the heyday of Motown and soul. However, singer Ricky Fanté has made history, literally.

"I finally heard the type of recording that's been missing in all of our lives. It has an old-school sound but it's fresh," said R&B veteran Isaac Hayes recently about the up-and-coming 26-year-old Fanté.

Fanté, who grew up in southeast Washington, D.C., learned the importance of translating his life experiences and feelings into music at a young age in the church.

"My grandmother was a Pentecostal preacher and with that comes a lot of singing with the gospel. From that, I learned how to sing through emotion," said Fanté. "It was the first time I experienced that, in church. My grandmother away from the church would sing throughout the house and there was music always on in my home. My father and mother would play music constantly."

Fanté's overall style and presence - the clever and catchy arrangements, a lyrical innocence and simplicity, horn lines, back vocals, chord progressions and his gritty, crooning voice - has drawn comparisons to the likes of Al Green, Sam Cooke and Otis Redding.

"I'm thankful and I'm glad that people think that but I like to think I sound like me," said Fanté. "Those guys are such huge legends and I don't think I particularly sound like any of them. I think people are more comfortable with putting artists into a category, it's easier on the mind."

On his debut album "Rewind," due out in stores next month, Fanté collaborated with Grammy-winning songwriter Jesse Harris who is known for his work with Norah Jones on her multiplatinum album "Come Away With Me."

"I brought a demo of mine to Jesse and explained to him the idea of what I wanted to do. It was kind of like a blind date thing," recalled Fanté. "We met in the studio and we basically had to see if we, first of all, got along and we really hit it off well. He laughed at my jokes and we just had a really good relationship in the studio. It made for a really nice atmosphere as far as writing."

Fanté not only hired the Stax and Muscle Shoals bands that played with Hayes and soul duo Sam & Dave for the work, but also famed producer and arranger Willie Mitchell, who is responsible for the indelible sound captured on many of Green's records.

"It's been kind of weird because I received a response from a lot of people of an older generation, but then I've also met these really hip young kids who want to be cutting-edge I guess by being into something of a throwback album," said Fanté. "For the most part, they think it's something real and they are probably shocked to hear someone singing like that."

Aside from his church experiences, Fanté remembers living in a home where the record player was always on, spinning recordings of everything from Miles Davis and John Coltrane (courtesy of his dad, an engineer with the D.C. Metro rail system) to Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye (thanks to his mom, a former lawyer turned elementary school teacher, who loves Motown).

"Most of the melody flow comes from me," explained Fanté. "I want to be able to grow as a musician as much as I can and to share a talent that was given to me with others and, I guess, to be able to entertain. I've always felt strong about singing and I always just felt singing came naturally to me."
One of Fanté's most memorable musical experiences as a kid was his visit to the Washington Monument to hear and see Stevie Wonder play a live concert.

"Stevie was leading the campaign to get Martin Luther King's birthday passed as a holiday," Fanté remembered. "My mother and my aunt took me to see him. I couldn't believe what I was hearing; I was literally moved to tears by his performance. From that point on, I was all about Stevie."

Fanté grew up in a city known for its "go-go" music, a style that intertwined the musical nuances of James Brown, the Ohio Players, and George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic.

Subsequent to high school, Fanté enlisted with the Marines for a four-year stint. Following his service, Fanté migrated to L.A. to attend college to pursue a career in music.

Around the six-month mark, Fanté won a talent contest and with that, a deal with an independent record label. Fanté worked odd jobs while in school, but the life of a student was short-lived, as the vision of a music career in the back of his head grew stronger.

Fanté founded a two-man group called Soul Surfers and its demo eventually ended up in the hands of Virgin Records A & R executive Josh Deutsch.

Fanté signed a development deal in 2001 and Deutsch later put Fanté in touch with Harris. Just in the same spirit as the unparalleled Motown, R&B and soul albums of the past, Fanté's album accents romantic perspectives of bittersweet romance with songs like "Are you Lonely Too?" and "He Don't Love You," revisits a past tragedy on "Why" and celebrates the quintessential observance of love between a man and a woman as in the case of "A Woman's Touch."

"I co-wrote every song on the album with Jesse," concluded Fanté. "So with the song 'Why,' I actually lived that - my friend was actually stabbed and so it's a very real song for me. 'It Ain't Easy' is a very real song, too. It's about coming out to L.A. by myself. I think I've lived enough in which I can write about something one day when I feel a certain way. I can't be happy and write a bad song or I can't really be in love and write a distant song. It's all about what I'm feeling at that particular hour as I write because I feel like I can relate to it and I go on a specific experience."