Jill doesn’t sound like a proper church singer to me… she’s a bit more jazz-tinged, which is not surprising since the majority of the Philly sound is inspired by the more “secular” soul sound of the early 70s

(i tend to bifurcate soul the same way i do the Civil Rights movement: 1960s = church/gospel-based/pacifist; 1970s = Black Panthers/jazz-fusion based/”angry” and explorative)

Anthony Hamilton… i don’t know what to say about him because i really can’t take him seriously at all. There was a period that he used to walk around wearing a trucker hat that said “ACTOR” on it, and i thought that was fitting because that is really how i see him. The dude is trying five hard © StacyAdams if you ask me… he IS a good singer, though he kinda represents what i was talking about black singers trying to “sound black”…

John Legend… hmmm. Something about him sounds authentically churchy to me, but at the same time his vocal approach makes me think that he learned to sing by studying Stevie Wonder’s more pop-oriented records much more than from the choir