Citizen Cope - The Rainwater LP
Friday, January 29, 2010 at 1:18PM 
Blurring the boundaries has always been easy for Clarence Greenwood, AKA Citizen Cope. Over the course of three albums (on as many record labels), the Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter has always gone off the mainstream road to find his own musical path: acoustic blues shuffles, stinging rock riffs, singer/songwriter intimacy and gritty urban rhythms combined into a streetwise alloy of "urban folk". “The only way to explain my music," says Greenwood, "is to say you gotta listen to it." And many have. Sales for Cope have topped 400k in the U.S. alone and he remains a strong concert draw, here and internationally.
New self-produced, self-released album The Rainwater LP (March 2), his first in nearly four years, wears its "LP" moniker with pride. “I wanted the record to have an LP feel,” he says. “Vinyl can only have a certain amount of songs. It takes you on a journey and then when it’s done, you can go, ‘Cool. Let me check that again.’” Lead track "Healing Hands" reaffirms Cope's distinctive style -- and his fascination with 70's icons and influences as disparate as Randy Newman and Stevie Wonder. Beginning as a folk ballad, his husky voice atop an acoustic guitar, "Hands" quickly evolves into a quiet but insistent funk groove, a modern Bill Withers-styled jam that rides a rock steady reggae-tinged backbeat. Recommended.
Citizen Cope - "Healing Hands" (from the album The Rainwater LP)
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