Curtis Harding

Curtis Harding: “If You’re Not Getting Better, Then What’s the Point?”

By August Billy

After years of collaborating with the likes of Cee Lo Green and The Black Lips, Curtis Harding made his solo debut with the 2014 album  Soul Power,  the title of which made the Atlanta musician’s intentions clear. Now three albums into his solo career, Harding specialises in what he calls “slop n soul”, a voracious blend of dirty funk and heart-baring soul.

Harding’s latest album,  If Words Were Flowers , came out in late 2021 via Anti-, a label known for releasing albums by Tom Waits, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Mavis Staples. The record was co-produced by Sam Cohen, a Brooklyn-based producer and solo artist who also worked on Harding’s previous effort, 2017’s  Face Your Fear .

Ahead of his first ever Australian performance at the inaugural Wanderer Festival , Curtis Harding chats to Music Feeds  about his hometown, his love of George Clinton and Sly Stone, and his creative principles.

Curtis Harding on His Influences and Career Goals

Curtis Harding

Music Feeds: You’re in Los Angeles at the moment. Are you still based in Atlanta?

Curtis Harding: I live in Atlanta, but I just go back and forth because most of my bandmates live [in LA]. So, I come out here for rehearsal and I’ve got a couple of auditions that I have to do because I’m doing some acting stuff. So I have to come out here for work purposes.

MF: You moved to Atlanta as a teenager and you’ve been based there ever since, is that right?

CH: Yeah, I was about 15 years old when I moved to Atlanta.

MF: Atlanta has a lot of significant music history and it remains a hotbed of musical innovation. Your journey to discovering the style of music you wanted to make, do you think that was influenced by the culture in Atlanta?

CH: Yeah, I do in part. I think any time you spend a lengthy amount of time somewhere, the community itself helps build your character and whatever artistic goals you’re trying to achieve. So, definitely, Atlanta has played a significant role in my artist development.

MF: Your third album, If Words Were Flowers , came out last year. In the past you’ve described your sound as “slop n soul”. How would you break that down for the uninitiated?

CH: I’m pretty sure people are familiar with Parliament-Funkadelic. Well, you know the album Cosmic Slop ? It kind of just describes the funk: it’s sloppy, it’s runny. It’s just a mixture of different stuff, different genres thrown into one, and it sustains the farm when you give it to the pigs and whatnot.

And soul is just what it is. It’s your experience, it’s the feeling, it’s the mood. So, put those together, you got slop n soul.

Curtis Harding – ‘Hopeful’

MF: Has George Clinton been a big influence for you?

CH: Yeah, you know, he was fearless. They started out as almost like a Motown act, a soul group, and just the evolution, it just turned into this whole show of characters. And George Clinton was the ringleader of that.

You just go back and you listen to the stories and you see some of the footage, it’s just mind-blowing. From the costumes down to the musicianship, it’s all over the place. It’s great. So, definitely, they’ve been an inspiration. Still inspiring – George Clinton’s still going strong in his 80s.

MF: People like George Clinton and Sly Stone were really adventurous and boundary breaking for the time, but the work holds up.  

CH: I love how inclusive the music was. Especially someone like Sly Stone, he included everybody. It was for the people. I feel like George Clinton and those guys, they had a heart, not just to reach one demographic of people, but everybody – anybody that wanted to get on board was welcome.

MF: Do you think of yourself as part of a musical lineage that stretches back to artists like George Clinton and Sly Stone?  

CH: I don’t think of myself in those terms. For me it’s just a labour of love; I just love doing it. But I think, if music is progressive, I think that the foundation needs to be strong, and it’s already been set. As long as you have a strong foundation, then you can put your spin on it and take it as far as you can take it. Then it’s up to the next person to do the same thing.

So, it just needs to be pushed forward, and that’s all I strive to do – to get better and better and to add my stone on top of that cornerstone.  

Curtis Harding – ‘Can’t Hide It’

MF: Do the people around you, like the musicians you play with and tour with, keep you inspired?

CH: Yeah, I have a lot of great friends who are into music and touring and playing consistently. We try to keep each other on each other’s toes. That’s how you get better.

I try to play with people that are better than me. In a lot of ways it’s very selfish because I’m learning from them as well, and that way your well never runs dry. You have to surround yourself with people that inspire you and keep you motivated to do what you do.

MF: Do you feel like  If Words Were Flowers  is evidence of you getting better? Is it your best album?

CH: It’s the last record I released, so it’s the best one thus far. But I feel like the next one is going to be better than that one. My whole point is, if you feel like you’re not getting better, then what’s the point? If that was the case then I would take a break.

Music is something I’m always going to do, whether it’s professionally or whether it’s just for fun, because it’s what I love to do. I can’t say that I will be doing it well into my 80s like George Clinton, but that would be the dream.

Find out more about Wanderer Festival here .

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The Dandy Warhols, Curtis Harding, Jack River and more to play debut Wanderer Festival

The inaugural three-day event will take to NSW’s Sapphire Coast in September

Courtney Taylor-Taylor of The Dandy Warhols (Scott Dudelson/Getty Images) + Curtis Harding (Mariano Regidor/Redferns) + Jack River (Matt Jelonek/WireImage)

The inaugural edition of the Wanderer Festival has been announced, with artists set to appear including US imports The Dandy Warhols and Curtis Harding , as well as local favourites like DMA’s , Winston Surfshirt , Jack River , Didirri and Confidence Man .

  • READ MORE: DMA’S live in Sydney review: trio ditch the dancefloor and dazzle with stripped-back set

The three-day music and art festival will make its debut over the weekend of September 23-25, and will be held on a farm near Merimbula (Djiringanj land) along NSW’s Sapphire Coast.

A press release declares that Wanderer is “founded on the core tenets of sustainability, community and creativity”, with programmer Simon Daly (the same man behind the Lost Lands and Falls festivals) saying in a statement: “It’s about tearing down the barriers of the last few years and facilitating human connection and togetherness.

“We are thrilled to have secured this line up of extraordinary artists for our inaugural festival and feel very privileged to be part of an incredibly welcoming and creative community, in such a unique setting.”

The event will come as Harding’s only Australian show for 2022, while The Dandy Warhols are also due to tour with the Hoodoo Gurus in September. Other highlights of the Wanderer bill include The Teskey Brothers , Sarah Blasko , DZ Deathrays , Josh Pyke , Emma Donovan & The Putbacks , Isabella Manfredi , Body Type and Bakers Eddy .

More artists are due to be announced in the coming weeks – for now, you can find all the names shared in the first announcement below. Tickets go on sale here at 9am this Friday (June 3), and will be available in one-, two- and three-day tiers. Camping and glamping passes will also be offered.

In addition to its live music roster, Wanderer will also sport a sprawling arts program. As curator Ian Pidd said in his own statement: “We are really excited about the breadth of the program. People will come with a must-see list, but will undoubtedly leave with a new favourite act they’d previously never heard of.

“This is the unique power of live performance. It’s also been a privilege to work with the incredibly rich creative community of the Sapphire Coast, who play a significant part in the overall program.”

The first line-up announcement for the 2022 Wanderer Festival is:

Ziggy Alberts DMA’s The Teskey Brothers The Dandy Warhols Curtis Harding Winston Surfshirt Sarah Blasko Jack River DZ Deathrays Confidence Man Josh Pyke Emma Donovan & The Putbacks Pierce Brothers Isabella Manfredi Didirri Cookin’ On 3 Burners The Grogans Maple Glider Jess Ribeiro Anactoria Magic Machine Benji & The Saltwater Sound System Gabadu B Wise Grentperez Pania Body Type Bakers Eddy Djinama Yilaga The Bega Valley Men’s Choir

  • Related Topics
  • Bakers Eddy
  • Confidence Man
  • Curtis Harding
  • DZ Deathrays
  • Emma Donovan
  • Emma Donovan and the Putbacks
  • Isabella Manfredi
  • Sarah Blasko
  • The Dandy Warhols
  • The Teskey Brothers
  • Winston Surfshirt

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CURTIS HARDING: THE ‘FACE YOUR FEAR’ INTERVIEW

  • AustralianMusician
  • October 26, 2017
  • Features , Interviews

curtis harding australia tour

Harding, who paid his dues rapping and then singing backing vocals for Cee-Lo Green before moving out on his own, has just released his second solo album Face Your Fear . Produced by Harding, Sam Cohen and Danger Mouse the album mixes traditional soul sensibilities with atmospheric grooves and modern day recording techniques to create something uniquely his. Australian Musician’s Greg Phillips recently caught up with Curtis, who had just returned home to Atlanta between USA tour dates to talk about the making of Face Your Fear.

Curtis, were all of these songs written with this new album in mind or was it just a collection of ideas that you had at the time? The majority of them were written while working in the studio. I would demo a song, lay down a melody, take it to my motel and refine it. I’d then take it to the studio the next day and just record it. We came in there with ideas in mind and some lyrics but they were pretty much written there. A couple of months prior to going into the studio, I was recording some other stuff in LA. I had the space and the opportunity to do so
 so I had some songs down but didn’t use any of those ideas for the sessions with Brian (aka Danger Mouse) and Sam because I wanted to start out fresh and see what we came up with.

Danger Mouse was a producer on this album along with yourself and Sam Cohen. What was the attraction to Danger Mouse as a producer initially? Well we’ve got the same taste in music for a start. I’ve known Danger for over a decade. I have always admired his skills as a producer and his tastes and the way he goes about making the stuff that he does for people that I am also a fan of. So I was a fan first and then a friend. It was an honour to be in there with him. I learned a lot. That’s another reason why I wanted to get in there with him man, it was like an internship. I liked to watch how he got everything done and he brought Sam Cohen in. Sam and I did the bulk of the in-studio stuff and then we’d play it for Danger. As the master-producer, he said I feel like you guys should do this or that.

How important was the time in your past working with Cee Lo Green? Did you learn much about recording from him? Definitely man. I learned a lot about vocal stylings and just how to write. I am always learning from people I work with. I don’t work with people that I don’t feel like I can learn anything from. That’s the way it should be. That’s the way you get better. So yeah, I learned about vocal stylings, songwriting techniques and learned how to do things on the spot.

Do you like to get your vocal takes down quick within a few takes or do you tend to do a lot of takes and try different phrasing and stylising? It just depends on what we are trying to accomplish and what the song requires. I do whatever is best for the song. If I feel like the song requires a bunch of takes and I am trying to hit a certain mood or whatever, then I will do it as many times as I can. With the song Ghost For You for instance, I did that a bunch of times because I was trying to get a certain mood for the song. I thought the song deserved that. Each song is different man. Sometimes you can knock it out in one take. When it feels good, you know it.

Go As You Are is the current single. Whose idea was it to feature the wah pedal? It’s such a great sound. Thanks, that was mine. I did that track at my home and then I took it to the studio and played it for Sam and we got the guitar to where we could use it.

Are you a big fan of pedals? Do you have many? I don’t have a lot of pedals but I have enough. Although sometimes I feel like I don’t have enough. I’m always looking for new sounds. I think right now on my pedalboard I got a fuzz pedal, an overdrive, a wah, a tremolo but I have a ton of pedals just laying around the house, some I’ve even forgotten about. Most of them are overdrives.

You generally play a Fender Jazzmaster. Did you record with that? Yeah I did. The guitar on Go As You Are is a Jazzmaster. I have a ton of guitars, some of which I don’t bring out live. I will at some point but haven’t yet. I have an SG, a Stratocaster, a bunch … I have a Martin concert acoustic. I got a lot of guitars.

What was the first guitar you owned? A Strat that was given to me.

You’ve stayed with that sound really haven’t you? I’m a Fender guy man! It’s just my tone that I like to hear.

There’s acoustic guitar on the track Welcome To My World . Did you use a studio guitar or it that the guitar you write with? No that was an old vintage guitar that Sam had in the studio. I can’t remember what brand it was but it sounded really good.

Are you more likely to write a song on an acoustic guitar or can it just as easily be an electric with a pedal? I wrote most of the songs on acoustic for Soul Power but I didn’t write many songs on acoustic for this record. I mainly used my electric guitar, unplugged just sitting in my hotel room. A lot of the songs I started out with the bass lines first, that’s what I did with the song On and On. It just depends what you have at your disposal. I mean, I could write a song with just my iPhone, humming a melody into it.

curtis harding australia tour

I read in another interview that you said you’re not really a political artist but it’s getting increasingly difficult not to get drawn into it. Do you think music has a role to play in politics? No I don’t so. I think music has a role to play in people’s lives in general. I think politics is just one aspect of what we have to endure. There’s politics in the music business as well so it depends about what kind of politics you’re talking about. I don’t think that music necessarily should be used as a political tool, although it can be. At least for me and my opinion, it’s a way to heal. It’s for me first. It’s therapy, it’s entertainment. I prefer music with a message but not specifically a political message, something that is going to push me forward to a positive stance. I try to seek out positive things as much as I can. So I don’t think music should necessarily be used as a political tool. We got enough of that goin’ on with people pushin’ agendas.

I love the horns in Til The End , it’s a real authentic 60s sound. Do you reference other records at all when trying to achieve certain sounds? I never go into a song trying to make it sound like something, it’s just how I feel. Afterwards maybe I might go well this reminds me of this or that. Listening to as much music as I have listened to in my life from gospel to old soul, that stuff is in my DNA and sometimes I can’t help it and it will sound like something else.

Did you have many other tracks that you were working on that didn’t make the album? I always have songs man. I am always curating something. Some things are just 15 seconds of a melody, some are whole pages of lyrics that aren’t necessarily a song yet but yeah, I got songs. As I was saying before I have songs which I recorded in LA. I got a whole other band with a record called Night Sun with Cole Alexander (Black Lips). We just haven’t put them in a form for people yet. We have a record’s worth of material. I was just hanging out with the boys in New York. They’re on tour with Kesha and we caught up a couple of nights and talked about how we’re going to put the album out. I think we are going to record some more stuff and then refine what we already have but we’re definitely going to out something out. It’s just been hard with everyone’s schedules. That’s what we been talking about. We just need a week where everybody in the same place and just get in there and knock it out.

What are the plans for playing the solo album songs live? Will you replicate all the parts or play more organic versions? We’re definitely going to try to replicate it. It’s just a matter of getting the parts facilitated. We’ve already been playing the songs out live. The only things that’s missing are the back up vocals. We’ve got this girl Amber Mark, who did a lot of the backing vocals on the record. We can do the strings with the keys. We did an acoustic session for a TV show and we had to do Wednesday Morning and there are no acoustic guitars on that. It wasn’t even written on acoustic guitar, so it’s always fun to do another interpretation of your music but I want to try to stay as true as possible to the album.

When a musician gets busy touring and promoting an album, they sometimes don’t get to actually listen to music. Do you still allow yourself time to listen to other people’s music? Yeah we get to listen to music, especially if we have a travel day. We’re listening to music and podcasts and stuff. We make time. In the green room before the show. We mainly listen to a lot of old stuff, soul standards, rock standards, some punk, dream pop occasionally. I’m all across it. Honestly, this is the rule 
 whoever is driving , which is usually our tour manager, they get to DJ because they have to be in a good place. You want the person driving you to your destination to be in a good place, so whoever is driving or up front, they have the reins to DJ. I learned that from my mum, traveling a lot. She’d say whoever’s driving, they can listen to what they want to 
 within reason!

When can we expect to see you in Australia? I’m not really sure but sooner than later I hope. We have this tour coming up in November and we start on the east coast in Philly and end in Seattle, then we do Europe until the 29th but I hope it’s soon. I think my booker is working on that now. I’m looking forward to it. I hear a lot of good things about Australia.

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curtis harding australia tour

Indie

Curtis Harding Shares The Smoky Soul Of ‘Explore’ And Announces New Tour Dates

Adrian Spinelli

Curtis Harding is making some of the best modern soul music out right now. Singles like “With You” and “Can’t Hide It” have shown the same propensity towards gospel and psychedelia that was all over 2017’s Danger Mouse and Sam Cohen-produced Face Your Fear. And now as the November 5th released date for his follow-up effort, If Words Were Flowers on ANTI- Records approaches, Harding has shared the final single and a slew of 2022 tour dates.

“Explore” sees the Atlanta-based Harding navigating through a budding connection with a partner over trippy keys and imaginative horns. It’s opulent smoky soul and the debonair Harding’s voice is gravitational as he sings “As long as it’s room for two, then I love it yeah // Just enough for me and you. Then I love it yea.” The album’s singles touch on themes of love, protest, resistance and power through collective grief. In a statement, Harding reflected on what has inspired his songwriting:

“Nina Simone said that it’s an artist’s job to reflect the times,” Harding explains. “I think it’s important to live in the moment. If you do that and you’re honest and vulnerable, you can reach the people that need to be reached.”

Listen to “Explore” above, check out the newly announced US/Europe tour dates below, as well as the If Words Were Flowers tracklist, and album artwork.

curtis harding australia tour

1. “If Words Were Flowers” 2. “Hopeful” 3. “Can’t Hide It” 4. “With You” 5. “Explore” 6. “Where Is The Love” 7. “The One” 8. “So Low” 9. “Forever More” 10. “It’s A Wonder” 11. “I Won’t Let You Down”

1/14 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West 1/15 – Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre 1/17 – Washington DC @ The Black Cat 1/21 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom 1/24 – San Diego, CA @ Music Box 1/25 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom 1/26 – San Francisco, CA –@ Great American Music Hall 1/28 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom 1/29 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos

2/26 – Madrid, Spain @ Cats 2/27 – Barcelona, Spain @ Sala Razzmatazz 2/28 – Montpellier, France @ Rockstore 3/2 – Bordeaux, France @ Rocher de Palmer 3/3 – Nantes, France @ La Soufflerie 3/4 – La Rochelle, France @ La Sirene 3/6 – Paris, France @ La Cigale 3/7 – Brussels, Belgium @ Botanique Orangerie 3/8 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso 3/9 – Rotterdam, Netherlands @ Maassilo 3/10 – Köln, Germany @ Club Bahnhof Ehrenfeld 3/12 – Hamburg, Germany @ Mojo Club 3/13 – Copenhagen, Denmark @ Hotel Cecil 3/15 – Berlin, Germany @ Metropol Berlin 3/16 – Prague, Czech Republic @ JazzDock 3/17 – Munich, Germany @ Ampere 3/18 – Vienna, Austria @ Club Porgy & Bess 3/20 – Milan, Italy @ Biko 3/21 – Zurich, Switzerland @ Mascotte 3/22 – Besançon, France @ La Rodia 3/24 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton 3/25 – Bristol, UK @ Thekla 3/26 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club 3/27 – Glasgow, UK @ King Tuts Wah Wah Hut 3/28 – Manchester, UK @ Gorilla 3/30 – Dublin, Ireland @ Whelan’s

If Words Were Flowers is out 11/5 via ANTI- Records. Pre-order it here .

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Curtis Harding at Plaza Santa Teresa, Burgos, Spain

  • Go as You Are
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Curtis Harding at Zeltival 2023

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Curtis Harding at Zuiderparktheater, The Hague, Netherlands

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Curtis Harding's Psychedelic Soul

By Shakeil Greeley

Photography by Alex Reside

Alex Reside

"Soul" means a lot of things to a lot of people. To the religious, soul is your immaterial essence, your life force, so to speak. To music executives in the '50s and '60s, it was a opportunity to get rich. To hordes of fitness junkies, it just means time to go to spin class. In 2017, soul is everything from a car model to a dystopian location tracking app , but to Curtis Harding, "Soul is an experience. It can be in the way you dress, the way you talk, the way you sit down in a chair. It's a feeling that you can translate to someone with whatever you're doing." It's an intangible quality, an effortless cool that legendary artists have managed to channel into something that the rest of us can dance to, cry to, give ourselves to.

A veteran singer who cut his teeth over a decade ago doing backing vocals for Cee-Lo, Harding seems to do everything with soul: The way he talks about his passion for film, style, and music, is soulful. The ease with which he rocks a Saint Laurent jacket is soulful. Most importantly though, his music has soul in every note, every guitar lick. If soul is an "experience," unable to be confined by descriptors, the title track from Harding's new album, Face Your Fear, is an excellent illustration of it. The groove is slinking and relaxed, Harding riding the beat just behind the drums, delivering every word with an unwavering confidence, but also a very human tenderness. His voice never raises above a whisper, but the quiet energy he packs into every syllable will have you hearing his melodies in the back of your mind for days. It's the rare song that could soundtrack a wedding or a funeral, at once celebratory, sad, groovy, and of course, very soulful.

Alex Reside

On Face Your Fear , Harding's voice finds many uses, moving from classic soul falsettos on tracks like "On and On" and "Need Your Love" to ghostly crooning on sultry standout "Welcome to My World." You'll find yourself grooving and bopping to some songs without thinking, you will be caught off guard by the sadness of others. Sonically, the record sounds like a mashup of Curtis Mayfield and Sam Cooke if you heard all of their music in a cosmic dreamstate.

Harding excitedly talks about bringing in new sounds that may not traditionally appear in soul music, like synths and psychedelic elements, creating something that is "soul music, but still progressive." He attributes that to his creative collaborators. He and Danger Mouse had been looking to work on a project for some time, but Harding had never met Sam Cohen when he showed up to the first day of recording. They cut the album opener, "Wednesday Morning Atonement"—a slow-burning ballad that combines Harding's suave yet rugged vocals, eerie backing synths, and a killer guitar solo—on that first day.

As Harding tells it, "I had no idea [Sam Cohen] was fuckin' coming, man! I thought it was just gonna be me and Danger in the studio, and then he was like, 'Oh Curt! I forgot to tell you, I flew this guy in to work with you.' This just goes to show the brilliance of Danger Mouse—he knew we would hit it off. He knew that with Sam, we could accomplish everything musically that we'd talked about."

Alex Reside

The record is a journey into the roots of soul music, but also an exploration of what the genre can still become, freely reclaiming elements from contemporary rock and pop music to establish something decidedly progressive. It's less of a concerted effort to muddy up genre lines and more of a natural blending of influences and styles that come naturally to Harding. "I don't go into it thinking, 'Oh, I should mix this with that.' That's just the way it comes out," he elaborates. "It depends on what I've been listening to and where I'm at." The starting point is surely soul, with classic hallmarks of his predecessors all over his new album, but what sits on that foundation is hardly a rehash of old sounds. With Danger Mouse and Sam Cohen bringing psychedelic textures to the project, the trio created a tapestry of subtle synths, cinematic strings, and haunting overtones that give Curtis tons of room to explore with his voice and guitar.

And Harding is still exploring, musically (he's already begun writing songs for the next record) and expanding into new realms (you'll catch him in the second season of Sundance TV's '80s period drama Hap and Leonard alongside Michael K. Williams early next year). But the mission is simple: "If people can get the message within the music, then I'm doing okay. That's the goal, to spread more positivity, positive vibes."

Alex Reside

Soul music has historically been a platform for black artists to translate their emotions, struggles, and cool to the world, but it is also, like any creative endeavor, hard labor to achieve the highest planes of success. It is important to keep that context in mind when watching or listening to Harding, putting that aforementioned effortless cool to work. Fifteen years after his first credits on a major release, that same work ethic has gotten him to a point where he is freely innovating with soul music in his own world, on his own terms, shooting for a spot among his heroes.

Great musicians give listeners the raw materials to build memories around, giving life's moments an extra layer of beauty and deeper understanding of our own souls. On Face Your Fear , Curtis has done just that, demonstrating the culmination of years of creative energy, and has made it look easy. "Nothing is new under the sun, it's a continuation," he explains. "I'm just trying to do it my way, and do it well."

Alex Reside

Curtis was the face of Hedi Slimane's Saint Laurent Paris Music Project in 2015, and has a jacket named after him (which he is wearing in our shoot) in Saint Laurent's permanent collection. Here's the story of how Hedi and Curtis first came to meet.

"I was on this tour called Beach Goth, that The Growlers used to throw every year. [Hedi] was there just taking photos of different artists, as he does, and he came to my show and took an interest in the music and my 'persona,' so to speak. He came up to me and wanted to take pictures of me, and I was like, 'Who the fuck are you?' [ laughs ]. Then he came up to me again, and said, 'I want to take pictures of you with your guitar,' to which I said, 'I don't take pictures with my guitar.' He was like, 'That's the same thing Chuck Berry said.' Then the conversation started [ laughs ]. I was staying at The Growlers' house at the time. They had this hippie compound, and I was sleeping in the garage. We were partying, just pass out wherever, and I had my little spot in the garage [ laughs ]. So he pulled up the next day with these black SUVs. Someone wanted to know if someone called the cops! So I come out, stumbling out of there after a rager we had that last night, and he was just casually taking shots, dude. They came out really dope, I liked the style. He's a cool guy, man, really is. It's rare to find people in his position that have the kind of power that he has, who can scale down to a sense of normalcy and catch people in their natural element."

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BroadwayWorld

Curtis Harding Shares 'Explore' Single From Upcoming Album

Harding's new album will be released Friday, November 5.

pixeltracker

Atlanta psychedelic soul artist Curtis Harding has shared the new track "Explore" today ahead of this Friday's release of his new album 'If Words Were Flowers'. A trippy track that dives headfirst into a sea of new experiences with a partner.

Harding has also announced a January 2022 US tour today that will include performances in his hometown of Atlanta as well as New York, Los Angeles, Portland and more. At the end of that run he will head to Europe for February and March shows across the continent; all upcoming dates are listed below.

Written and recorded over the past two tumultuous years, 'If Words Were Flowers' is a vibrant, intoxicating bouquet, one as diverse as it is dazzling. Drawing on vintage soul, R&B, hip-hop, garage rock, and psychedelia, the songs here are raw and gritty, fueled by airtight grooves, punchy horns, and adventurous production from Harding and frequent collaborator Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Benjamin Booker).

"Nina Simone said that it's an artist's job to reflect the times," Harding explains. "I think it's important to live in the moment. If you do that and you're honest and vulnerable, you can reach the people that need to be reached."

That honesty and vulnerability is front and center on 'If Words Were Flowers', which opens with the arresting title track. "If words were flowers / I'd give them all to you," Harding sings with a boost from a larger than life backing choir.

Harding broke out Stateside with in 2017 with his previous album 'Face Your Fear'. Helmed by Cohen and super producer Danger Mouse, the record earned Harding dates with everyone from Jack White to Lenny Kravitz, landed him festival slots at Newport Folk, Lollapalooza, and Austin City Limits, and racked up nearly 60 million streams on Spotify alone. NPR declared the record one of the year's best R&B releases, calling Harding a "gifted, gospel-bred shouter and deep digger in the Curtis Mayfield/Stevie Wonder crates," while Complex hailed the music as "vintage, classic soul music" with "psychedelic splashes and a touch of garage rock fuzz," and New York Magazine raved that "with a scorching voice like his, the funk is eternal."

Listen to the new track here:

1/14 - Atlanta, GA - Terminal West 1/15 - Athens, GA - Georgia Theatre 1/17 - Washington DC - The Black Cat 1/21 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom 1/24 - San Diego, CA - Music Box 1/25 - Los Angeles, CA - Teragram Ballroom 1/26 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall 1/28 - Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom 1/29 - Seattle, WA - Neumos

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Curtis Harding

Curtis Harding could best be described as a student of the gritty, sweat-dripping, hip-swinging blues that wafted through the air of the American more...

August 2024

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Thekla, Bristol 25th March 2022

Michigan singer-songwriter, Curits Harding, has been on an extensive European tour since February. Tonight is the second night of a sold out run of UK shows.

As is customary for Thekla on a Friday, it’s an early show so that they can clear us all off the boat before the 10pm club night. This always seems to catch people off guard and when the band take to the stage shortly after 8pm, the crowd is sparse with many still in the bar queues.

The second song played, “Can’t Hide It”, is probably the breakout single from Harding’s third album “If Words Were Flowers”. It received a lot of play on BBC 6 Music last year and that’s evident from the reaction in the crowd. The floor begins to fill up and the dancing begins. It’s a tight and accomplished performance. 

Harding’s songs are like old friends – every track on the setlist soundslike a classic. His voice warm, rich & identical to the recorded versions & his band are polished & funky.

Curtis explains that the support has had to pull out due to illness and he’s also feeling “under the weather” but is “still here”. An audience member shouts that he’ll “still be brilliant” and a grin beams beneath his sunglasses as he retorts “I’m always brilliant, baby” There are moments where parts of the crowd are a bit too chatty and this is not lost on Harding. He steps back from the mic to give the audience a moment to get their Friday night catchups out of their systems before resuming.

An even mix of songs from all three of his records follows with “I Won’t Let You Down” and “Need Your Love” generating particularly rapturous responses from the Bristol crowd. He makes several references to not feeling too well and a glimpse of the printed setlist on the floor shows a number of songs crossed out suggesting that some last minute changes made before he hit the stage. On the Euro tour, he’s regularly been playing 20-25 songs per show but tonight’s it is all over in 60 minutes.

 Just as the crowd felt properly warmed up, he bids us goodbye with “remember, Curtis Harding ill is still great”.  He’s not wrong, Wishing Curtis a speedy recovery

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Wednesday 28th October. Village Underground. Curtis Harding. It’s back to Hipster Ville, Shoreditch this time, to the railway tunnel that is Village Underground. Not bone of my favourite venues in London with generally poor sight lines and it’s a must to get there early to get a good vantage point.

It’s a sold out show tonight for the nu soul star Curtis Harding. After a ten minute rap from one his mates with a Go Pro being passed around the audience it’s on with the show.

Curtis Harding is a bit of a throwback to sixties soul laced with a bit of Lenny Kravitz guitar and attitude. He’s touring on the back of his fine debut album, Soul Power, and the set is completely taken from there plus the odd cover including the closer a storming version of Aint No Sunshine.

He shows the whole range of his voice throughout the set and the band ably support him throughout especially the guitarist. It’s a bit of a stop start show though with too many guitar tunings between songs and this loses any sense of momentum that was building. It’s all over in a blink finishing just under the hour mark but we will be back after the next record when there will be more material to draw from.

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garyw66’s profile image

Alors que nous étions enthousiastes à l'idée de voir ce chanteur sur scÚne, nous avons vite été refroidis.

En effet, Mr est arrivé avec 30min de retard, sans s'excuser et a balancé son album en 50min. Sans émotions. Sans charme. Sans vibrations. Grosse déception.

Autant ce chanteur est visiblement talentueux, autant ça ne l'excuse pas d'avoir ce comportement dédaigneux et de proposer un spectacle aussi faible.

vincent-carcagno’s profile image

A beautiful voice but a lazy performer going pop, despite the rock outfit. No artistic expression but easygoing replaying of the songs of his albums. Nice songs though... All in all a disappointing concert.

ppan’s profile image

Curtis admitted that he was pretty jet lagged, but still put on a good show. The band had great groove. Had some cool space-y visualizations and songs followed pretty similar structure to the albums

pearce-merritt’s profile image

well. i expected some chilled fun, an awesome voice and dancing feet. could have been better... longer for example! after 30min delay he played max 1 hr and the sound was not the best either.

B29’s profile image

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    New Album 'If Words Were Flowers' Out Now

  9. About

    Home Tour Videos Music About Home Tour Videos Music About. Scroll. Growing up, Curtis Harding's mother used to tell him, "Give me my flowers while I'm still here." It was a phrase that stuck with the talented singer and multi-instrumentalist through the years, a reminder to show his love and appreciation for the people he cared about ...

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    Curtis Harding (born June 11, 1979) is an American singer and songwriter. Primarily a soul artist, his "slop 'n' soul" style carries the influence of genres including blues, gospel, psychedelia, R&B, and rock.His first album, Soul Power (2014), was followed by Face Your Fear in 2017, with production from Danger Mouse and Sam Cohen. Harding was born in Saginaw, Michigan, and his family settled ...

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  21. Curtis Harding Tickets

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  22. Review

    On the Euro tour, he's regularly been playing 20-25 songs per show but tonight's it is all over in 60 minutes. Just as the crowd felt properly warmed up, he bids us goodbye with "remember, Curtis Harding ill is still great". He's not wrong, Wishing Curtis a speedy recovery. Ryan Simmonds Craig J Simmonds Media

  23. Curtis Harding Tickets, Tourtermine und Konzerte 2024 und 2023

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