After decades of experience in Seattle’s funk scene, most of the players on Kearney Barton are in their 60s, though you’d never know it from these exhilarating new recordings. There’s an itchy edge to Overton Berry’s shimmering piano and Ron Buford’s sexy Hammond B3 organ that suggests eager rookies, not grizzled vets. A sultry cover of Soundgarden’s “Jesus Christ Pose” surpasses the histrionic original with an appearance by the Total Experience Gospel Choir, and “H.O.E.,” with rousing backing from studio legends the Muscle Shoals Horns, is an absurdist, George Clinton-style jam.
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