curtis harding australia tour

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

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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Wanderer Festival Adds Wolfmother, Alice Ivy and More to 2022 Lineup

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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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Alors que nous étions enthousiastes à l'idée de voir ce chanteur sur scène, 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.

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.

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

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.

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Curtis Harding at Electric Brixton (Review)

Soul singer Curtis Harding proves he can rock out too

Hailed by The Guardian as one of ‘the new stars of classic soul’, Curtis Harding has plenty to offer both as a studio artist and live performer. Fans of Leon Bridges, Durand Jones & the Indications , and Joel Culpepper would be wise to check out his material – that is, if they’re not already privy to his work.

Raised in Michigan – his father, a mechanic, and his mother, a gospel singer – Harding spent large parts of his youth supporting his mother as she toured the gospel circuit. The music of Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples permeated his childhood. He found himself collaborating with Cee Lo Green in the early 2000s and singing back-up for the likes of Outkast and Lauryn Hill before pursuing solo ventures.

Performing at  Electric Brixton  as part of his UK tour, Harding’s set surveyed his first two albums (2014’s Soul Power  and 2017’s  Face Your Fear ) and his shimmering latest release If Words Were Flowers  (2022). His repertoire is steeped in the influence of southern soul, but coloured with psychedelic, symphonic, and garage rock textures too, with no shortage of catchy hooks (see: ‘ Heaven’s on the Other Side ‘).

Though Harding’s set may have lacked some of its studio lushness in the absence of dedicated backing singers, it was nonetheless packed with thrilling energy and musicianship. His muscular vocals – capable of rich, full-bodied lows and clean falsettos – sat above a busy soundscape of glorious live horns and fuzzy guitar. Working the stage with a nonchalant ease, Harding broke out into episodes of tambourine-shaking abandon as he seized upon the energy of his band and the audience. From the soaring, gospel-tinged thrust of ‘ I Won’t Let You Down ‘, the restraint and finesse of ‘ With You ‘, and the explosive psych-soul of ‘ Wednesday Morning Atonement ‘, Harding had his audience rapt.

Photography credit: Matt Correia

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• Artists Profiles

CURTIS HARDING: THE ‘FACE YOUR FEAR’ INTERVIEW

• AustralianMusician
• October 26, 2017
• Features , Interviews

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.

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: The Shape Of Soul To Come

Is the former gospel-singing nomad the second coming of superfly , by brad simm.

• Published on December 2, 2021

“What about that burnt orange, crushed velvet suit you’re wearing?”

A smile creeps across Curtis Harding’s face when asked about his outfit on the cover of his new album, If Words Were Flowers . In addition to the stylin’ suit he’s wearing, Harding’s got a lot to be happy with. And even though his new release  is now in circulation, Harding is still riding the crest of his 2017 breakout album, Face Your Fear. 

Breakout may be an understatement as to how extraordinary Face Your Fear is as a musical statement that embraces the past while spearheading the future. Not only did the record put Harding on the rising star radar, but his collaboration with Danger Mouse dives into a brave new world that’s not the least bit scary. On the contrary, its fiercely seductive blend of trip-hop, Motown, soul, and dream pop transports listeners into another dimension. And then there’s Harding’s voice echoing the majestic beauty of Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield – a divine presence that Harding naturally draws firepower from. 

Throughout his early life in the 1980s and 90s, Harding lived like a nomad, roaming endlessly with his parents who were missionaries of sorts, helping to build and set up churches across the United States, Mexico, and Barbados. His father, a mechanic, and his mom, a modern-day gospel minstrel who Harding sang backups with until his mid-teens. “A gospel minstrel,” chuckles Harding. “That’s a good one! It was interesting but at the time it was normal to me because that’s all I knew. It wasn’t until I grew up and realized, ‘Wow, I had a very different upbringing.” 

As bonafide church planners, Harding’s family would be based at different locations for up to a year. During the stopovers, his mom would perform with college choirs and do street ministry, singing to homeless audiences. “She had a tendency to move us to some of the worst parts of the inner city, and do work there with gang members, drug dealers, whoever,” recalls Harding. “Multiple times it would be people staying at our house, or sometimes we didn’t have a place to stay and would stay in the back of churches, or slept in the van if we got somewhere too early or someone didn’t show and pulled out of an obligation. Yeah, we definitely had some interesting times.”

Harding sings like an angel – the man is blessed with a voice that caresses every corner of your inner universe. He also has a very special talent for reaching into archives of vintage soul and not just capturing its true essence, but reshaping it into a new entity. With Motown, Harding moves through, penetrates, and orbits around that dazzling creative period, but he’s never derivative, never just a contemporary knock off. That’s a special talent. 

Revealing how it all works, Harding simply says, “I think by just being myself. When you try to be something else is when you fail, at least in music. Just be what is already consuming you and that is multiple worlds. And I think that has to do with the way I grew up and spent my time. I was never exposed to just one thing. I was always exposed to different genres, different people, different environments. That’s just who I am. The goal for me is to be as progressive as possible, to add different facets and not repeat myself.”

Harding’s new album, If Words Were Flowers, is certainly a departure from what he’s done before. It takes risks, moving away from the silky smooth pop bass lines of Face Your Fear and delves into regions more experimental, perhaps a touch psychedelic. The guitars are trippy, horns ebb and flow as rich tones from female back-up singers swell and rise up. There’s both a natural ease and urgency to the record that parallels Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On. But Harding says there was no real plan in place, other than to just empty his head. “When I make music, I have a lot of material where I’m piecing shit together so it makes sense. And the times were so heavy leading up to writing and recording that unconsciously that’s what came out. I mean, 2020 was a crazy fucking year man. So that sentiment couldn’t help but to creep out, which has to do with the What’s Goin’ On vibe. But that wasn’t my thinking, I was just writing stuff. You know what I’m saying? It just worked out that way. And then once I was able to conceptualize what I had done, it was like, ‘Oh wow, it is a reflection of some of the shit that’s been happening.’” 

But what about that burnt orange, crushed velvet, Gucci designed suit that makes Harding look like the second coming of Superfly on the front cover of his new record? “Gucci, man, they’ve been real good to me, hooking me up with stuff,” says Harding gleaming. “I’m a huge fan of their stuff. I feel like fashion can be like, uhmm… wasteful. It’s pretty wasteful. But I feel their company as a whole, their footprint, they’re leading the way for a lot of brands to do better for the planet while staying true to who they are. They’re also getting involved with the community, bringing up new, up and coming designers, Black designers, Hispanic designers — Anybody who does that, I’m on board.” 

Brimming with delight, he notes, “They have nice shit too, it’s well thought out.” 

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Curtis Harding Shares 'Explore' Single From Upcoming Album

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

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

FACE YOUR FEAR

ANTI RECORDS

“I am large, I contain multitudes.” — Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

Simply calling Curtis Harding a “soul man” feels reductive. Yes, his music is undoubtedly soulful and his songwriting is both evocative and provocative, but there’s more to his music than the stock imagery the label conjures. Harding’s voice conveys pain, pleasure, longing, tenderness, sadness and strength—a full gamut of emotions. Yet still, “soul man” seems too simple a description for musician like Harding, a man who has lived multiple lives as a musician, participated in different scenes, and brought all those varied sounds and experiences together to carve out his own unique niche. The culmination of his experimentation is his latest masterwork, Face Your Fear .

To understand Curtis Harding, the singer-songwriter, drummer, guitarist and producer, one must first understand his musical origins. For Harding, it all began in his birthplace, Saginaw, Michigan. It was there that his church-going mother, a singer herself, first exposed him to the sound and spirit of gospel music. He sang and played drums in church with his family, and songs like Mahalia Jackson’s stirring rendition of “Elijah Rock” left an indelible mark on him. While his mom’s gospel records praised the sacred, his big sister’s rap tapes showed him the beauty in secular music. He looked up to his big sis, an amateur rapper herself in the vein of MC Lyte, and before long young Curtis Harding was writing his own rhymes. After a nomadic childhood of moving Harding put down roots in his adopted home of Atlanta — the perfect place for an intellectually curious young man to broaden his musical horizons.

Embracing his surroundings and fearless in his exploration, Curtis the rapper and rhyme writer would eventually become Curtis, the songwriter and back-up singer for ATL icon CeeLo Green. “I learned a lot from that dude,” says Harding, recounting the valuable lessons the Goodie Mob and Gnarls Barkley member taught him about singing and songwriting. “He used to say, ‘You ain’t gotta commit murder [on a track], you can do a simple assault.’” No need to overdo it to get your point across. The singer’s task is not to prove that they can sing but to get the audience to feel. For Curtis, it isn’t enough for him to be a proficient performer, his voice and his words have to serve a purpose.

Curtis Harding’s definition of “soul” is a broad one. Soul is the essence, not the form. He found soul in Atlanta’s punk scene, he found it at rap shows, he heard it on Bob Dylan records and found kinship with people who heard it the same way. Harding once found soul blaring through the speakers in an Atlanta bar where Black Lips’ Cole Alexander was spinning the same classic gospel his mother raised him on. The two bonded over their shared appreciation for the music and formed the band Night Sun.

Becoming a fixture in studios and on stages helped him develop his own unique formula: Curtis Harding’s specialty is synthesis. “I take everything that I’ve learned from these different genres and put it in a pot and come up with something new.” His well-received 2014 solo debut Soul Power was the first iteration of the formula, his new album Face Your Fear is that formula perfected. Partnering with his chief collaborator Sam Cohen and with mentorship of super producer Danger Mouse has created an album that speaks to range of emotions a man reckoning with the world and love go through. He’s reminded of a lost love on “Ghost Of You,” he seduces on “Welcome To My World,” he seeks forgiveness on “Wednesday Morning Atonement” and pledges devotion on “Need My Baby.”

As Curtis explains, “The record [ Face Your Fear ], to me, is all over the place because I go through moods, man. I change.” The dark title track was inspired by the feeling of a nightmare; a foreboding feeling, the spell broken by the clarity of awakening. “By the way maybe don’t worry Its OK face your fear” he croons on the chorus. Fear of the unknown, fear of the unfamiliar is a bad dream the brave among us must constantly shake ourselves out of. it’s something he’s had to practice his entire life as he moved from place to place and continues to practice as he moves forward as a musician, “Just putting myself out there and not being close-minded and just being open to different ideas and different sounds and different flavors and putting myself in situations sometimes where I didn’t know if I would make it out but you know [the mantra is], face your fuckin’ fear!

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Curtis Harding Concert Setlists & Tour Dates

If words were flowers tour, curtis harding, curtis harding at vesu 2023.

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Curtis Harding at Plaza Santa Teresa, Burgos, Spain

• Go as You Are
• Can’t Hide It
• Need My Baby
• Keep On Shining
• Till the End
• Wednesday Morning Atonement

Curtis Harding at Zeltival 2023

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Curtis Harding at Zuiderparktheater, The Hague, Netherlands

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Most played songs

• The Drive ( 52 )
• Keep On Shining ( 51 )
• Next Time ( 50 )
• Castaway ( 45 )
• Freedom ( 44 )

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Steven Curtis Chapman

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Artists covered

Bee Gees The Mamas & the Papas Night Sun Bill Withers

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Gigs seen live by

402 people have seen Curtis Harding live.

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Tour Update

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