Music Review - `Reason To Try` by Shaun Murphy (dmac)
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Shaun Murphy - Reason to Try (click on image to watch video)
24 August 2019
It makes sense Bonnie Raitt has called Shaun Murphy one of her all-time favorite vocalists. They’re both cut from the same bluesy musical cloth. Reason to Try is a stellar collection of soulful love songs, centered around Murphy’s hurricane-strong voice.
The album’s title track is an ode to someone that provides life-giving strength. Featuring churchy organ and soulful electric guitar, Murphy digs down deeply, for this Mavis Staples-Esque testimonial. Its lyric speaks of how it’s so much easier to keep on going whenever you have an empathetic supporter in your corner.
Murphy has had quite the career to date, one that has included everything from Broadway performances to singing with Little Feat for 15 years. Most of these 14 tracks groove in an oh so soulful way, but the album’s best recording is something completely different. “Power of Love,” a song Ashley Cleveland wrote with her husband Kenny Greenberg, opens with a hard-rocking electric guitar riff similar to Ted Nugent’s “Stranglehold.” Its words extol the strength found in spiritual love, and Murphy sings it like a true believer.
The album’s prettiest song is the thoughtfully meditative ballad, “Someday,” which was penned by another admirer and her former employer, Bob Seger. Lyrically, it looks both backward and forward. “Someday, I know I’ll find that road/And I, will pay back all I’ve owed,” it begins. Although not the album’s last song, it plays out like its logical conclusion. Shaun Murphy has seen and done much throughout her career, but there’s still plenty of work left to be done.
Dan MacIntosh - Dan MacIntosh has been a professional music journalist for 30 years and his work has regularly appeared in many local and national publications, including Inland Empire Weekly, CCM, CMJ, Paste, Mean Street, Chord, HM, Christian Retailing, Amplifier, Inspirational Giftware, Stereo Subversion, Indie-Music, Soul–Audio, Roughstock.com, Country Standard Time and Spin.com.
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