Torsten Goods - Thank You Baby! (2015)

Spirituals, blues and roots music form the creative foundation for Thank You Baby!, music that the 34 year old German/Irish guitarist/singer grew up with. If special guests and horn arrangements were a distinctive feature of Goods' previous release 'Love Comes To Town', here a compact 4-piece line-up makes a more powerful statement; the musicians that form Goods' 'dream band' include drummer/producer Wolfgang Haffner, Roberto Di Gioia on Fender Rhodes and piano, and American blues/jazz drummer Timothy Lefebvre. The idea for the recording was to make the music sound pure and just like a live studio perfomance, without any overdubs, exactly as they would have done it in the sixties. 'Thank You Baby!' convinces on that score across the board: whether it be the irresistibly rolling 'Work Song' by Nat Adderly; Ray Charles' 'Hallelujah I Love Her So', steeped in sixties charm; the reharmonized, deeply melancholic and reduced-to-its-essence 'Where Did You Sleep Last Night?' by Lead Belly; the fully improvised standard 'Afro Blue', composed by Mongo Santamaria; or the killer swing of 'How Sweet It Is', the Motown classic made famous by Marvin Gaye. This song and its lyrics were the inspiration for the album title.

Tracklist:

1. Work Song (Nat Adderley / Oscar Brown Jr 3:27
2. Brother, Where Are You (Oscar Brown Jr) 4:21
3. Midst Of Your Love (Torsten Goods) 3:30
4. How Sweet It Is (Lamont H. Dozier, Brian & Eddie Holland) 3:50
5. Lord, I Need A Woman (Torsten Goods & Jan Miserre) 4:52
6. Kyrie (Steven George, John Lang & Richard Page) 3:45
7. Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen (traditional) 4:36
8. Hallelujah, I Love Her So (Ray Charles) 3:14
9. Angel (Torsten Goods & Jamie Hartmann) 4:13
10. Sing Hallelujah (Mike Settle) 3:32
11. Afro Blue (Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría) 4:46
12. Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Hudson William "Lead Belly Ledbetter) 3:28
13. Everything Must Change (Benard Ighner) 4:12

Personnel:

Torsten Goods / vocals & guitar
Roberto Di Gioia / Fender Rhodes & piano
Tim Lefebvre / Fender Jazz Bass & double bass
Wolfgang Haffner / drums