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I was just reading the little blurb about Bosco Mann in the newest Bass Player Magazine and something just didn’t sit well. I have a few of the Daptone Records’ releases, and I really enjoy the music… to a point. On one hand, I think the Dap-Kings and their associated projects are a welcome antithesis to two decades of lame mainstream R&B and the recent movement– no longer referred to as blue-eyed soul, but instead– “Starbucks Soul” that keeps getting turned around as the genuine article. It’s good to hear real music fans make music for real fans. However, I think they found an audience by building off of the timelessness and versatility of old R&B. You can’t go anywhere without hearing a Motown song, or an old Aretha song, or Al Green, or Otis Redding– and there are tons of reissues of formerly underground and unknown artists from that period popping up and selling like mad in the indie shops– why not design a whole label that pays hommage to that concept. Great idea.

The problem is that the music itself takes no chances whatsoever. When Bosco Mann says that these are guys who know how to play tastefully in bands, I– at first– agree, but then what I hear is music without any sense of adventure. Don’t get me wrong, the Daptone stuff is groovin’. You’re gonna like the music, you’re gonna want your friends to get into it too– but it’s not going to make you especially excited about buying more than a couple of albums after you realize that they are all essentially the same thing over and over again. Tasteful… yeah, but really it’s just a bunch of semi-pro dudes with a gimmick who hide behind some fabulous vintage gear and competant marketing and refuse to take any real chances. The result is the equivalent of a cabaret act with an incredible marketing scheme. They look, sound and talk like a real vintage R&B band, they have hip names, they play weird guitars you’ve never seen before, but they won’t wow you with inventiveness or originality because that would destroy the concept completely.

So when I read about Bosco Mann gushing about his pawn-shop bass, and bragging about not needing to use more than three strings and rubbing greasy food on his brand new rotosounds to deaden them, I can’t help it imagine that he’s conjuring up some hip “Sixties’ R&B Cat” schtick to throw around in his interview to promote his cliche “Sixties R&B label.” These are stock interview responses we’ve heard from so many great players, and Bosco’s regurgitating as though he was film the soul music Spinal Tap. His image is a cartoon caricature of a 60’s R&B musician and it is as derivative as the shiny jacket and sunglasses he and his bandmates wear.

I will however, always hold him in the highest regard for getting a dark-skinned black woman with some meat on her bones to be the frontwoman for the Dap-Kings. We’ve had far to many Alicia Keys proclaiming to be the best soul NYC could offer. I always thought it was bullshit. Sharon Jones is an incredible singer and an incredible performer.

Then again I can’t help it negate that respect for association with that talentless trainwreck, Amy Winehouse.