Elmer “Lee” Fields was born in 1951 in North Carolina. The son of a musician father and gospel-singing mother, he performed in his church choir, shaping his musical identity from a young age while attentively listening to his parents’ radio play the sounds of blues icons like Jimmy Reed, Howlin’ Wolf and James Booker.

Embodying a certain Southern sensibility that can only be attributed to the contrasting realities of surging African-American music and racial segregation in the 1950s and 60s, Fields has enjoyed a prolific 43-year career and releases on twelve different labels.

Still an active musician, Fields began touring in 1969. He’s shared the stage with acts such acts as Kool & the Gang, Darrell Banks, O.V. Wright and Sammy Gordon, and, in the last decade, has released three discs on Brooklyn-based Truth & Soul Records. The latest of these is Faithful Man, a record Fields says “tries to cover the 360 degree circumference of love relationships.”

Speaking with The Uniter on the phone from New Jersey, Fields talked about his epochal career, musical inspirations and the excitement that stems from creating neo-soul in the twenty-first century.

“First of all,” he begins, “I think for a person to be able to get a connection with the generation of the day [they] have to be as informed as possible about what’s going on around them.

“ People fall in love, some people get hurt by love, and some people find the love of their life. But that’s one thing that doesn’t seem to change. Man, woman, or love relationships.

Lee Fields

“But one thing that hasn’t changed throughout the years are love affairs. People fall in love, some people get hurt by love, and some people find the love of their life. But that’s one thing that doesn’t seem to change. Man, woman, or love relationships.”

Fields’ voice has often been compared to James Brown - earning him the moniker “Little JB” - but his attentiveness to the intimacy of love and affection adds a timelessness to his songwriting that transcends the generational divide. These aren’t the sounds of yesteryear; this is contemporary soul music.

“I got my own style,” he says. “But you can feel I’ve been heavily influenced by James, and Sam Cooke, and Otis Redding - I was influenced by all of those guys. I want to allow people to see who Lee Fields really is. I don’t really get the ‘Little JB’ comparisons anymore. Everything is just straight from the heart.”

Although most younger fans will recognize Fields’ recordings with the Expressions, Truth & Soul’s house band, the singer’s earliest work dates back to 1969’s Bewildered, a track completed with jazz guitarist Teddy Powell and esteemed American composer Leonard Whitcup. That era, he says, was informed largely by an upbringing in the South, and a childhood that revolved around the transportive power of church music.

“At that time, music was very enchanting to me” he recalls in a melancholy tone. “On Sundays, momma would take us to church, and I’d watch the singers look up to the sky talking to someone. All I saw was the ceiling, but then the preacher would say something and everyone would fall down to the floor! Did the preacher have some kind of magic? It was very mystical. I think that’s why I began making soul music.”

Indeed, Fields’ music has a classic, soulful flavour that emits an impassioned religiosity, but elements of funk, blues and jazz also tinge his most recent works. From a feature on Sharon Jones’ Naturally LP to collaborations with French house DJ Martin Solveig, to the release of his critically-acclaimed sophomore release My World in 2009, Fields has been very busy and feels perfectly at home with his new band.

“I really think the Expressions and myself were meant to play and make music together. For all of the years I spent wanting something to happen, I think this is what I was waiting for. The Expressions were inevitable for me. . . it was meant to be. We fit together so well, and wherever we go people show a lot of love for us. It’s a pure, natural thing.”

With their most recent work, Fields and the Expressions have (if you excuse the pun) remained faithful to creating smooth vocals and energetic rhythms to bring the sonic qualities of his youth to a new generation.

As for its status as ‘revival’ music, Fields really doesn’t mind the depiction.

“Whatever you wanna call it, feel free,” he says with a chuckle. “Call it whatever you want, as long as it touches you.”

Published in Volume 67, Number 26 of The Uniter (May 29, 2013)