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Retro-soul revivalists St. Paul & the Broken Bones were originally slated to play Bristol’s Trinity Centre on the Southwest leg of their current U.K tour until an incendiary performance on Later with Jools Holland saw the band bumped up to the more prestigious surroundings of Colston Hall. A smart move, surely, as the reception that was given the band at the close of a truly earthshaking set would have taken the roof off a less well-appointed building!
The bands USP, aside from playing vintage soul music with a bravado that serves to gladden the most cynical of hearts, comes in the shape of larger-than-life frontman Paul Janeway, a soul shouter extraordinaire with the vocal chops to out-holler any of his rivals on the re-emerging R&B circuit. Couple that with St Paul’s mania for indulging himself in feverish spasms of onstage theatricality that would put James Brown to shame and you find yourself in the presence of an utterly charismatic, soul-singing shaman.
With just two albums, the torrid debut Half the City (2014) and the more decorous follow-up Sea of Noise (2016) to their name, the Alabamian combo clearly remains a work in progress. There is evidence aplenty, though, that St. Paul & The Broken Bones are much more than the proverbial one-trick pony; Sea of Noise traded in its predecessors’ (over) exuberant wham-bam-thank-you-mam instincts, for a rather more seductive, string-based, and occasionally funky approach to stirring our collective souls.
Janeway’s remarkable journey to the cliff-edge of pop stardom is one worth noting: a white kid (not that you’d know it from THAT voice!!!), from rural Alabama who, born into a Christian fundamentalist family, dreamed only of becoming a Pentecostal preacher until, in his late teens, he decided to exchange his holy calling for a career in accountancy and the guilty pleasure of making the kind of secular music that had hitherto been prohibited in the Janeway home.
Janeway may be keen to emphasis that he’s turned his back on all that “old-time” religion (within 30 seconds of taking the stage tonight he symbolically defrocked himself, extravagantly casting off his religious robes to reveal the luridly patterned jacket underneath), but a boyhood spent clasped to the bosom of his Mother Church is deeply enshrined in his extremely mannered stage performance – from the superficially scripted “good god almighty” to the ad-libbed “have mercy” (or, maybe, it’s the other way around), that he often relies on to reinforce the raw emotion of a lyric. All those Sundays spent watching hellfire preachers raising cane in the pulpit have clearly left their mark too – Janeway is forever raising his hands in mock supplication as he gazes toward the heavens, all the while entreating his “congregation” to dance “their asses off”. Well, it beats passing round the collection plate!
The spectacularly well-rehearsed and watertight band – co-founder Jesse Phillips (bass), Al Gamble (keys), Browan Lollar (guitar), Jason Mingledorff (saxophone), Chad Fisher (trombone), Allen Branstetter (trumpet) and Andrew Lee (drums), kicked off the 90 minute set with the casually funky “Flow with it”, a number which showcases Janeway’s glacially cool falsetto to rapturous effect. Other early highlights were the gender-defying deep soul ballad “I’ll Be Your Woman” and the coruscating “Brain Matter”, which saw Janeway wring every inch of soulful desperation from the lyric:
‘That’s my daddy with the gun / shooting someone else’s son’.
The set really hit the heights, though, with a fine rendition of the groovy “Midnight on the Earth” and a triumphant cover of Van Morrison’s “I’ve Been Working”. Anyone who’s listened to Van and the Caledonian Soul Orchestra’s scorching live take of this track on last years It’s Too Late to Stop Now re-issue will know exactly how high the bar had been set.
Just when you thought that the night couldn’t get any better, the band launched into the song that gave it its name “Broken Bones and Pocket Change”. Janeway has been known to caution fans not to take a toilet break during this number, though, unfortunately, there was no such warning last night, so some unlucky punters missed a terrifically hammy five minutes – Janeway, driven to mock despair, collapsing theatrically to his knees before shamelessly rolling around the floor and disappearing somewhere beneath the drum kit, re- emerging only to caress, then hurl his gold winkle pickers across the stage. The song (if anybody was actually listening at this point) ends with an anguished Janeway pummeling the hell out of the floor in feigned frustration.
Memorable, though, not quite show-stopping stuff as the band still had some unfinished business, rounding off their set with the Wilson Pickett homage “Call Me” and the heavy-duty gospel wail of “Sanctify”. A four-song encore included a rough and tumble cover of Otis Redding’s “Shake” (in their early gigs the band covered the whole of Otis Blue to compensate for a lack of original material) and a starkly honest “Is It Me” “, a song which lays bare Janeway’s ongoing theological bewilderment:
‘Jesus is stuck inside my TV screen / Giving all the answers but never holding me / Heaven is too far away and I can’t find no peace’
The set closes with a delirious, grandstanding version of “Burning Rome” complete with a mesmerising vocal that brought gasps and spontaneous applause, not for the first time, from an astonished audience.
St. Paul & the Broken Bones are the real deal alright; mixing soul and showbiz to ecstatic effect, fronted by a wonderfully puffed up singer, who also happens to be a born entertainer. Janeway’s bold claim that “It’s really difficult for me not to sing every time like it’s the last time I’m going to be on the planet” was borne out in full tonight in a show packed with fire, brimstone and belly laugh’s. If you ever get the chance, go see them play and, whatever you do, don’t forget to put on those dancing shoes.
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Source by Kevin McGrath