R&B singer Maxwell brings “blackSUMMERS night” tour to memorial Auditorium.
SATURDAY
Maxwell, an architect of the hip-hop-defying neo-soul movement of the late 1990s, will bring his latest concert tour to Chattanooga’s Memorial Auditorium on Saturday, July 30.
His latest album, “blackSUMMERS’ night,” is the long-awaited follow-up to 2009’s “BLACKsummers’ night,” which earned him two Grammy Awards: Best R&B Album and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for its breakout single, “Pretty Wings.”
Maxwell was something of an anachronism starting out. In a musical era that had been defined by hip-hop, Maxwell boldly drew inspiration from artists such as Al Green and Marvin Gaye to record “some of the most ambitious R&B of his time,” says allmusic.com. And his recurring theme of romantic monogamy easily set him apart from the vast majority of his contemporaries.
His 1996 debut, “Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite,” was a romantic concept album modeled after Gaye’s best work of the 1970s, with a more modern flavor that owed to the influence of Prince. After a slow start, the album went platinum on the strength of its gold-selling second single, “Ascension (Never Wonder),” was nominated for a Grammy Award and established Maxwell as a sex symbol.
He followed with an “MTV Unplugged” EP, taken from a live MTV performance that attracted attention outside the R&B community. Its version of “Whenever, Wherever, Whatever” earned him another Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal.
In 1999, Maxwell scored his biggest hit to date with the mammoth success of the single “Fortunate,” an R. Kelly composition he recorded for the soundtrack of the film “Life.” It ranked as Billboard’s No. 1 R&B hit of the year.
Maxwell is touring with Fantasia and Ro James. Fantasia is the Grammy Award-winning singer and actress who rose to fame in 2004 as the Season 3 winner of “American Idol.” Ro James is an emerging artist
best-known for the single “Permission.” He released his first major-label album, “Eldorado,” in May.