In House #1856: New Martin Sexton, Playing Salt Lake City Tonight

Over the past twenty years or so, singer-songwriter Martin Sexton has built a reputation as an artist with a consistently interesting and diverse output. One need only seek out a handful of selections from his catalog to find an artist that has rarely, if ever, conformed to anyone's expectations but his own, and he's excelled at several different genres because of it, often over the course of the same album. Seeds, his sixth studio full-length but first in seven years excluding 2005's holiday-themed Camp Holiday, is no different in this regard. Over the course of thirteen new songs and one version of a soul classic, Sexton ambles between pop, rock, folk, country, gospel, soul, and even a little jazz, showing off his trademark vocal range in the process. Whereas in the past such diversity has caused his efforts to sound pieced together, Seeds somehow keeps its overall focus amongst the genre-jumping. "Wild Angels," features Sexton backed by a choir of himself, foreshadowing the gospel inflection on the later "There Go I." "Will It Go 'Round In Circles," meanwhile, is Sexton's take on Billy Preston's classic, proving that an entire album's worth of such material from him would surely be of more use to the world than similarly-themed releases from the likes of Rod Stewart and Michael McDonald. Martin Sexton plays The Depot in Salt Lake City tonight, along with up and coming opener Jonah Smith.

Martin Sexton

In House #1856.
Airdate: 4/25/07
Focus: New release from Martin Sexton, Seeds, also playing Salt Lake City tonight. Plus, new music from Willy Mason, Mavis Staples, Wilco, and more.

BONUS MP3s-
Martin Sexton, from Seeds:

"Goin' to the Country" (MP3)

Mavis Staples, from We'll Never Turn Back:

"On My Way" (MP3)

PLAYLIST

In House PODCAST #299