photo: Rosie Cohe

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When Lee Fields says, “I’m a soul man,” he isn’t reciting the lyrics of a hit record from the previous century. He’s telling you about his life. “Regardless of what kind of music I do, it’s gonna be soul. In my heart, I will always be a soul man, no doubt about it.”

That Fields isn’t spouting hyperbole becomes abundantly apparent as you listen to Sentimental Fool, his recently released album on Daptone Records—the longtime home of the late Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley, as well as several other artists that keep the sound of vintage soul music alive. The dozen numbers that comprise Sentimental Fool could have been big radio and jukebox hits back in 1966, alongside the latest releases from Stax, Chess, Vee Jay, Specialty and the other trendsetting R&B labels. Fields’ vocal style is undeniably reminiscent of the greatest Black artists of the era, and when you augment his impassioned delivery with a funky rhythm section, alternately sweet and gutsy guitar and organ lines, and especially those meaty, air-tight horn charts, it all adds up to a recording that instantaneously recalls the heyday of classic soul.

Yet, at the same time, it’s somehow not retro—Sentimental Fool speaks to today’s audience, in today’s language. The songs, sourced from several writers, ring true in our modern world. In “Forever,” a tribute to his wife, Fields sings, “So many songs have said these same things before/ But this one darling is for you and me/ So if it’s alright with you, I’m gonna sing it once more/ I wanna hold you forever.” The way he puts his heart into those words, the song feels both intimate and universal. At the other end of the romantic spectrum, on “Save Your Tears for Someone New,” he lays it on the line: “You came to me with crying eyes/ You had to leave the other guy/ Now I’m the other guy to you/ So I’ll tell you what to do/ Save your tears for someone new.”

It’s full of heartbreak and heartache, as well as truth and gut—you can’t not believe Lee Fields when he sings.

Both of those songs are credited to Bosco Mann, a.k.a. Gabriel Roth, the co-founder of Daptone, bandleader and bassist with Sharon Jones’ band The Dap-Kings, and the producer of Fields’ Sentimental Fool. Roth has been working with Fields, now 72, for many years, putting out one-off singles on various labels, and had been eyeing a full-length collaboration for far longer than that.

“I spent years trying to talk him into making an album,” Roth says. “Every time he’d finish a record, I’d say, ‘Next time, do you want to come to Daptone and make another record with me?’ And he’d always say, ‘Oh, we’re in the middle of a tour,’ or ‘We’re locked into this thing.’ I’d almost given up on it. Then, in the last couple of years, his manager came to me and said, ‘He’s thinking about making a change and switching labels.’ And I was like, ‘Man, I’m always down. I’d do anything for that guy. Any chance I get to work with him, I‘ll take.’ I just felt like, at this point in Lee’s career and his life—being the force of nature that he is—he deserved to take his time and make the best possible showcase for his voice. He deserved to make the best record that he could.

“He is my favorite singer of all time,” Roth adds of Fields. “I probably first heard him around 1992-93 in New York, when I started getting more into soul records, buying compilations and reissues. I dug up all the tracks [by him] I could find. At the time, I had a record label called Desco with my partner Phillip Lehman, and he said, ‘I’m gonna call Lee Fields.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ That didn’t seem like a real thing. But Phillip was a resourceful dude. He found a phone number for Lee in New Jersey, and a couple of days later, Lee was right there in the studio in front of the microphone.”

Roth ended up writing some lyrics for Fields and the experience altered his own musical course. “As soon as he started singing, it changed my whole perspective on music,” he says. “I was having fun making records for my friends, but I didn’t take it that seriously. However, when I heard him singing a record that I’d produced and written, it just opened up my mind. With a singer like that, I could make a great record.”

Their working relationship has continued to blossom, culminating in the new release. “We worked our way toward making an album,” Roth says. “He toured with my [Daptone] partner’s band, The Sugarman 3, for a long time, and I kept writing songs for him. I wrote songs for him for years; I just heard his voice in my head. Actually, a lot of the songs on this album are songs that I wrote 15 years ago. Some are even older. We had a whole lot of songs.”

“Gabe Roth is at the top at his game,” says Fields, returning the compliment. “He’s a craftsman when it comes to carving out a good recorded product. It’s a pleasure working with him. He allows me to be me. Since I first made records with him, life has issued a lot of things for me to do and a lot of things for Gabe to do. Then it finally cleared up to a point where now we could do this. The timing, I feel, was absolutely perfect because of the product that we got. It was meant to be.”

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Elmer Lee Fields is originally from Wilson, N.C., where, in his youth, he listened to all kinds of music on the radio and wherever else he could find it. James Brown was his personal favorite, and his greatest inspiration—Fields’ approach sometimes had such a close resemblance to the Godfather of Soul that he was nicknamed “Little JB”—and he also admired Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson and other soul artists. There was a lot of gospel in the air and even some country music, which also found its way into his composite style. He was a Beatles fan too. “If it’s good, it’s good,” he says. “Sometimes I scan the radio and listen to a little hip-hop or a little jazz.”

Fields began cutting soul singles in 1969, mostly for small indie labels, but due to insufficient distribution—and a reluctance by the high-wattage radio stations to play them—he didn’t make the charts until 1986, when a single called “Stop Watch” barely scraped into the Billboard R&B list. “But you know what? I learned from that,” he says. “I learned how to do it with none of that [industry support], directly to the point where it touched people.”

Pure persistence and a belief in his self-worth motivated Fields to keep going, although there have been some trying times along the way, for sure. At one point, Fields tried his hand at dance music, and he even put in some time as a member of the soul/funk group Kool & The Gang. “I worked with them for maybe less than a year, doing shows, getting exposure in big theaters,” he says. “Their manager was going to record me, but sadly, he passed away at a very early age. So, after that, I wasn’t working with those guys anymore. I ran into a lot of obstacles, a lot of things that happened in life. But each blow made me stronger and wiser. That’s one of the reasons why I’m still around today—you learn from your errors.”

At one point during a lull in his career, when he felt that interest had waned in the kind of music closest to his heart, Fields left the music business, rather than sell himself out. He considered opening a fish store in New Jersey, where he was living. His wife reasoned with him to abandon that idea. “She looked at me and said, ‘What do you know about fish?’ The only thing I could tell her is that they taste good!” Fields says with a laugh.

But he knew deep down that he wasn’t finished doing what he really loved; he had to keep trying. Working with his musical partner Leon Michels and his band The Expressions—both of whom have long existed in the Desco/Daptone orbit—Fields continued to record and to perform live. Fortunately, the pendulum swung back in his direction. Now there is a fresh appreciation for what he does and an eager group of new fans—many of whom are too young to have experienced the peak of soul music firsthand in the ‘60s and ‘70s—who are often left slack-jawed during his performances.

“Amazingly, the crowd that’s coming, it’s kids, 18-19,” he says. “They tell me how good it sounds, how it makes them feel. It makes them feel free and happy. To me, that is the greatest thing a person can say about my music. That’s my intention—to make music that makes people happy, to make things that affect somebody in a positive way.

“Music doesn’t go into the digestive system,” he adds. “It goes into the ears. I feel that the brain is more important than most of the organs in your body. Without it, you can have all kinds of perfect organs and be lying there like a vegetable. Our music goes into people’s minds. So we try to make sure that it’s quality because it’s going into your brain.”

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According to Roth, insights like that are not atypical of Lee Fields. “I’ve never met anybody like him,” the producer offers. “He’s built very differently than anybody I’ve ever met. He has a stage persona of being this showman and this soul man, sometimes a balladeer. Live, he really likes to throw a party. But there’s also a much deeper side to him. He’s very analytical. He has a deep awareness of the power that he has to express his feelings through music and to really touch people.”

Thinking back to the making of Sentimental Fool, Roth adds that Fields applied that analytical, often methodical approach to the way he worked in the studio. “We’d spend a long time talking about a song, working on it until he figured out exactly what he wanted to do—what the song is about, what the feeling is,” he says. “Then he just kind of absorbed it and maybe he’d take a break or take a sip of whiskey or something, and then he’d come back at it. In the studio, he closes his eyes and it’s like a different guy comes out—this really raw emotion. There wasn’t a single word on the album that felt phoned in. He wasn’t gonna go through the motions. He was gonna make sure he felt everything on there and that, if he did that, people were gonna feel it.”

“I want people to really feel the sound, where the songs become you,” Fields says. “That’s why we always use actual musicians in the studio, as opposed to synthetic sounds. Gabe booked some of the best musicians that were available for these sessions, and it turned out to be a great album. I enjoyed singing it and now the audiences are enjoying listening to it. It was such a beautiful experience. I can’t even find words to describe how wonderful it feels.”