LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Lyfe Jennings
built 213 days ago
Lyfe Jennings is a double rarity in today's urban-music world. A great concert performer whose recordings tell only half his story, the Toledo, Ohio, native and former convict is ... a loverman unafraid to wear his morals and his heart on the same sleeve. The best moments on Jennings' outstanding sophomore album, The Phoenix, make both his peculiarities clear. "S.E.X." and "Let's Stay Together" are anguished ballads that leap off the disc. Is that because of Jennings' ripped-from-the-gut vocals or because his pleas for abstinence and fidelity are drowned out by each flush in this cesspool of an industry?
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The greatness of Lyfe Jennings’s music is the honesty of Lyfe Jennings. He speaks his mind and speaks to people about real things, instead of offering the soft one-dimensional content. His life experiences and his ability to notice things make it possible. Lyfe does not hit his fan base with the ‘sad realities of life’ only. He has the lighter, more upbeat stuff. He just doesn’t treat people as incapable of an emotional strength.
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The music of Chester "Lyfe" Jennings has the familiar feel of old-school classics, and his soulful, gravelly voice is being compared to the likes of R&B greats Al Green and Sam Cook. After a decade behind bars, he's ready to break out with his own brand of "folk soul."
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Not that he'd wish it on anyone, but it was during his ten-year sentence in prison that Lyfe Jennings developed his honest sound, thanks to isolation and Erykah Badu. It was an arson charge that put the Toledo, OH, native in prison. His musical aspirations started in the church choir and grew in the Dotsons, a teenaged group that Lyfe formed with his brother and a couple cousins. Prison made his music deeper, according to Lyfe, and when a copy of Erykah Badu's Baduizm ended up in his cell in 1997, he was inspired and had the feeling that this introspective edge to his music was worth developing. Two days after his December 2002 release from prison, he was recording a four-song demo CD. The day after that, he was performing live in a club. He only had a month of freedom before he was on-stage at the famous Apollo.
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Lyfe Jennings comes at just about the best time possible for the music scene. At a time when R&B music has almost completely lost it’s original feel he brings a very different game with him. Music fans have to go to the veterans like Mary J Blige and R. Kelly to get a reminder that not all music has to be commercial. Well, R. Kelly may actually be a bad example of that, but Mary has been avoiding the spotlight as she’s been making it all her life. Point being is that the today’s R&B hits mostly no longer have the lyrical substance nor depth of the roots of this genre. Stars like Beyonce have amazing vocal talents but offer a rather shallow emotional core of their songs.
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Not that he'd wish it on anyone, but it was during his tenyear sentence in prison that Lyfe Jennings developed his honest sound, thanks to isolation and Erykah Badu. It was an arson charge that put the Toledo, Ohio native in prison. His musical aspirations started in the church choir and grew in the Dotsons, a teenaged group that Lyfe formed with his brother and a couple cousins.
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Lyfe Jennings