The Lost Album

The year was 1992, and everywhere around the world there was a rich, husky voice lacing the Arrested Development hit with just enough red dirt and molasses (by way of NJ) to lift the  #1 Grammy-Award winning hit, “Tennessee” into something spiritual, something more than anyone thought possible for hip hop before. Two years later, we heard the voice again talking about “I Know” with funk rock band members David Harris and Milton Davis from Follow For Now on her hit project “Wild Seed—Wild Flower.” Two years after that, in 1997,  we got what appeared to be a final taste of that voice with the hit single “Hopeless” from the now historic “Love Jones” soundtrack. Then, suddenly, the short haired, plaid shirted lady known as Dionne Farris seemed to disappear.

Young and Bold Dionne

Only she didn’t really. Oh, Farris settled down and had some kids in Atlanta for a time. Grew her hair out and filled out her shape from its tomboy beginnings, but she stayed in good voice. And, by the mid-2000s Farris was regularly gigging and recording, bringing the house down with covers of Nina Simone’s “See-Line Woman” and songs from her little heard 2007 album “For Truth If Not Love.”

Dionne Wild and Free

The project that nobody heard is a brill assortment of grown woman songs with heavy, cinematic lyrics that have much in common with the full-blooded women of Pedro Almodovar films. “For Truth If Not Love” is more adult rhythm and blues than the altie-rock influenced “Wild Seed—Wild Passion,” and is equal or better to anything a so-called neo-soul diva has put out in the last decade. Which is why it kills me every time I hear fans at a new Dionne Farris concert says: Why she ain’t come out with anything since “Hopeless?” Well, she had, and owners of cuts like “Laughing & Crying,” “Possibilities” or “So Blind” can probably catch a mint for those tracks since Farris recently pulled the project from iTunes and Amazon. But, never fear 2010 promises to bring a new LP entitled “Signs Of Life” with lead singles “Baggage” and “For U” already ready for true fans. Now don’t miss out this time, not unless you were just a trendy granola-eating, back-packing Farris fan for play, play not for real, real. For truthseekers only.

TAGS: Arrested Development, Dionne Farris, Follow For Now