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The birth of the soul music revival—galvanized by Lee Fields and the late Sharon Jones andCharles Bradley since the early 2000s—offered a potent dose of authenticity to an industry
watered down by fabricated pop stars. These artists, orchestrated behind the scenes by vinyl
collectors turned label heads at Truth & Soul and Daptone, poured their hearts out on stage and
on records, and audiences responded in kind. But what the movement has been missing thus
far is an auteur, a visionary that writes, records, performs and produces his own material. Enter
Kelly Finnigan.
The 37yearold,
Bay Areabased
singer, songwriter, engineer, and producer will release his first
solo album, The Tales People Tell (Colemine Records), in the Winter of 2019.* The tensong
collection is raw and gritty, tender and emotive, lush and symphonic. With Finnigan
guiding these songs from their conception all the way to the record pressing plant, the
new release provides the singular voice missing from soul music.
In just under forty minutes Finnigan channels a multitude of influences that reflect a lifetime
immersed in the music and culture of soul, R&B, and hiphop.
The Tales People Tell is the story
of an outsider that followed an unorthodox route, always guided by his own creative north star.
Born in Los Angeles in 1981, Finnigan grew up in a musical household. His father, prominent
sideman Mike Finnigan (Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Etta James), would start some days by sitting
at the piano, sending songs like Ray Charles’ “Hard Times” cascading throughout their ranch
style home. Despite having a father so deeply entrenched in the music industry, Finnigan
resisted any formal musical education: “I only took three or four piano lessons before quitting,
although I would bang around on a cheap blue Remo drum kit stashed in the corner of my
room.”
Finnigan’s watershed musical moment came as a 14 year old when he witnessed a DJ captivate
a crowd of his friends at a party. He immediately dove into the world of hiphop,
beats, and
sampling, an unusual choice for a kid raised around rock royalty. “It woke me up to the
possibility that this is what I wanted to do. Creating music was like magic, and the most fulfilling
thing I’d ever done,” Finnigan recalls. In no time he was DJing junior high dances all over LA,
but also digging deeper into the source material comprising his favorite beats.
The luster of beat making on his Gemini DS8
sampler and Ensoniq MR61
sequencer wore off
for Finnigan by the time he hit his twenties. He wanted to recreate the classic, organic sounds of
electric piano, Clavinet, and Hammond organ that anchored his favorite A Tribe Called Quest
and Pete Rock records. A midnight run to Las Vegas and $300 later, Finnigan owned a Fender
Rhodes Suitcase 73 and set up shop in a small studio space in North Hollywood. He would
spend hours dissecting old soul records and teaching himself how to play keys.
In 2003 Finnigan and some friends founded hiphop
production crew Destruments. Combined
with the engineering knowhow
gleaned from jobs at two legendary LA studios (Village
Recording and Cello Studios), Finnigan and Destruments started releasing instrumental albums
and writing for West Coast rappers, including famed hiphop
collective Hieroglyphics. Finnigan’s
appetite for exploring vintage instruments eventually got him fired from one of the
studios—apparently staying late into the night to practice the studio’s Hammond B3 wasn’t
allowed. “I didn’t care about getting fired since I didn’t really want to be someone else’s
engineer,” says Finnigan. “I wanted to carve my own path.”
Finnigan’s path led him to Oakland, where he relocated with Destruments in 2007, and he
decided to stay in the Bay Area after the group dissolved in 2009. Although he was an
accomplished beatmaker, keyboardist, drummer, and engineer at this point, Finnigan had only
just started to sing, mostly on demo projects that he would shop around to other vocalists.
Receiving positive feedback for his vocals on one of the final Destruments releases (a cover of
Bobby Caldwell’s “What You Won’t Do For Love”) gave Finnigan the boost of confidence he
needed to start considering himself a lead singer.
In search of a group where he could write original music and continue his progression as a
singer, Finnigan found a permanent home in 2010 when he joined Bay Area instrumental funk
band Monophonics. With Finnigan in the driver’s seat, the band’s rise in the music world has
been impressive: a deal with famed label Ubiquity Records for their 2012 debut release of In
Your Brain ; numerous tours of Europe and the US; a stint backing up and producing for French
platinum seller Ben L’Oncle Soul; production credits and collaborations with hiphop
legends
Blackalicious and Lyrics Born; and prominent commercial and television placements. During this
time Finnigan also started his own studio and record label Transistor Sound. Finnigan and
company worked as a cohesive unit to create classic songs and resurrect psychedelic soul.
Following up the success of In Your Brain , however, was an arduous process. Relentless touring
left the band feeling fatigued, and Monophonics made the decision to get off the road and focus
on their 2015 follow up Sound of Sinning . After another record cycle the band relaxed their
recording and touring schedule even more. Finnigan felt the need to create music on his own
and put his talents on full display: “I wanted to start writing more songs for myself and was
hungry to be creative on a bigger scale.” One bright California morning in 2016 he sat down at
his upright piano and hammered out the first few chords to “I Don’t Wanna Wait,” the album’s
lead single and first track. Finnigan spent months slowly piecing new songs together by
overdubbing drums, lead and background vocals, organ, and xylophone. Once satisfied, he
called in brothers Max and Joe Ramey (The Ironsides/Colemine Records) to round out the bass
and guitar parts. The Tales People Tell was off and running.
Whether expertly placing vintage ribbon microphones, providing rocksolid
pocket on the drum
kit, comping classic keyboard parts, finetuning
a mix, or giving an unforgettable vocal
performance, Finnigan’s abilities are indisputable. Take “I’ll Never Love Again:” a restrained kick
and hihat
beat lays the foundation for fuzz guitar and an eerie melody doubled by female vocals
and organ. These first four bars are as captivating as the samples that inspired Finnigan to
create in the first place. Anthemic horn lines arranged by Finnigan and the horn section in studio
set the stage for Finnigan’s desperate testimonial: “Some people spend their whole life looking
for that long burning flame/but my flame’s been gone since it drowned in your pain.” Like the
best soul songwriters before him, Finnigan marries the universal and the personal, delivering
anguish and desperation in a jawdropping,
gritty tenor. Not bad for someone that started
singing less than ten years ago.
Moments like this abound on The Tales People Tell . Although he’s credited with playing ten
different instruments, Finnigan wasn’t afraid to call upon friends to finish the job. “It was really
important to me to reach out to people I know and respect in the soul community,” says
Finnigan. The credits read like a who’s who of soul artists; musicians that have performed on
Daptone (Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Charles Bradley, Antibalas), Truth & Soul (Lee Fields,
Lady Wray), Colemine (Durand Jones & the Indications, Jungle Fire, Orgone), and more grace
these tunes. Even legendary drummer James Gadson (Bill Withers, Marvin Gaye, Beck) and
Finnigan’s father Mike make an appearance on the album’s final song, the secular gospel
burner “Can’t Let Him Down.” Finnigan's bandmates in Monophonics appear on multiple songs
as well. There may not be another album that synthesizes the current soul movement
better.
Finnigan mines the depths of soul music’s rich history on The Tales People Tell . This is a mature
album, full of symphonic moments replete with strings and bells. Finnigan manages to utilize
these elements in an understated way like Curtis Mayfield, Brothers of Soul, The Delfonics, and
a select group of others before him. “Smoking and Drinking” evokes the mid60s
gritty pop of
Stax, deftly blending overdriven drums with upbeat horn lines and a choir of backup singers.
Finnigan delves into the rich tradition of “answer records” with “I Called You Back Baby” (a
tongueincheek
tell off responding to Gloria Barnes’ deep funk classic “I’ll Call You Back Later”).
Even West Coast lowrider soul—a sound Finnigan listened to every Sunday growing up
courtesy of KRLA’s Art Laboe—makes an appearance on the tender ballad “Catch Me I’m
Falling.”
Finnigan’s vocal prowess—clearly a catalyzing force for Monophonics’ success—reaches a new
level of emotional depth and expression. Whether it’s channeling the sensitive falsetto of
Smokey Robinson, the rugged crooning of Sunny Ozuna of Sunny and The Sunliners, or the
gospel perorations of Lee Moses, Finnigan slips in and out of character with the ease of a
seasoned professional. These performances relate tales of love and loss, desperation and
affirmation: “I love writers that tell stories, whether it’s Chuck Berry or Slick Rick.” His arresting
lead vocal performance is nearly matched by his background vocal duties and arrangements. It
is rare to witness such a combination of virtuosity and deep soulfulness. Finnigan clearly
establishes himself as a onceinageneration
vocal talent.
“I’m not looking to reinvent the wheel. I just want to remind people why the wheel was such a
good invention in the first place,” says Finnigan. He might be invoking a golden era of soul
music, but Finnigan captures a timelessness on this album that transcends the “retro” label so
often cast on music with a gritty aesthetic. Partnering with Terry Cole and his rising label
Colemine Records was a key part of this project for Finnigan—he’s been involved in over a
dozen Colemine releases as an engineer, producer, instrumentalist, and singer. Finnigan plans
to tour heavily in 2019 behind the album release.
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