by osmosis

The pursed lips that sit squarely in the middle of Naomi Shelton’s face on the cover of her long player can lead a listener to believe one of two things. Either she feels that the process of completing various tasks for her Daptone Records release of What Have You Done, My Brother? is a bit bizarre or she’d just rather be singing. Regardless of the answer to that, her back up singers display smiles more than ample enough to support her.

Coming from a church background as much as the secular bar scene in and around New York, Shelton’s been performing in one capacity or another for almost half a century. But despite her clear ability to lead a band through some soulful throwbacks, this is her first full length slab of grit.

Coming from Alabama to Brooklyn during the ‘60s Shelton was in on the soul explosion in the charts and on the radio that slowly shifted to languid funk in the following decade backing up Ruth Brown amongst others. She performed on and off through the decades, holding down day gigs to pay the rent. But Shelton always clearly had a piece of her mind contemplating making music in this format.

The 12 tracks that make up What Have You Done, My Brother?, might be perceived as poignant gospel for troubled times. Every offering over this slab ask questions or recounts some situation that begs a few. It becomes clear immediately, that Shelton, with her reserved soul holler, has undergone some bull shit to come through the other side of those experiences with enough knowledge and a strong enough constitution to create the year’s superlative soul disc. It’s laid out plainly on “Am I Asking Too Much,” when Shelton proffers the query, “Can you give me something better than drugs to sell” after wondering when her son’s coming home from Iraq.

 “Jordan River” might initially seem like a tune solely tied to the church – it is, kinda. But most of the songs here can just be seen as pop flared up with a stout organ led combo behind Shelton. Most of her lyrics, though, work just as well when applied to secular worries. Replacing the concept of a higher being with a man changes everything from religion to relationships – “He Knows My Heart” takes on this transformation pretty easily. It worked for Aretha. And at this point when everyone in the country’d be able to identify her church hat, Shelton and her Gospel Queens deserve every bit of praise that they’ve received thus far.