Lee Fields

Vinyl Discography (complete):

Biography:

Lee Fields, a soul screamer who achieved his greatest success after more than three decades in show business, initially specialized in the tight, gritty funk that James Brown made famous. Fields' breakthrough, however, came when he developed a more distinctive and personal style and found a new following in the retro-soul movement. He first made a name for himself among die-hard funk fans with a series of hard-hitting singles recorded for various small labels in the 1970s. Everything about Fields—his appearance, his singing, the grooves on his records—was so indebted to James Brown that he earned the nickname "Little JB." Fields never made it big, but his raw singles became popular collector's items. After a long hiatus, he returned in the 1990s as a soul-blues belter for a female audience on the Southern circuit. Thanks to sample-obsessed hip-hoppers and British aficionados of rare grooves, interest in lesser-known vintage funk reached a new peak in the late '90s, and Fields was fortunate enough to remain active when new recordings in the style became a viable proposition. Fields emerged as a leading light of the so-called deep funk movement with Let's Get a Groove On (1998), the first in a series of recordings that often equaled, and in some cases even surpassed, his early work. Its success allowed him to expand his creative palette with a series of soul-oriented albums, ranging from My World (2009) to It Rains Love (2019), on which he was supported by the Expressions. After half a century of activity, Fields continued in the 2020s with Sentimental Fool (2022), his first album for Daptone.

Lee Fields was born Elmer Fields in Wilson, North Carolina, in 1950. Growing up, Fields had a strong interest in music, and in his teens, he developed ambitions to become a professional singer. In 1967, he packed his bags and jumped on a bus to New York City; his mother couldn't stop her son from following his dream and gave him her last twenty dollars to help him get started. Fields was an ardent fan of James Brown and could imitate the soul icon's movements and singing style so well that he began playing club shows, and his fans called him "Little JB."

Fields released his first single on the Bedford label in 1969, “Bewildered” b/w “Tell Her I Love Her.” After the one-off “Gonna Make Love” from 1973 on London, Fields struck out with Norfolk Sound; 1973 also saw the release of one of his most popular 45s, “Let's Talk It Over” b/w “She's a Love Maker” (it wasn't a big hit at the time, but later found favor with vintage soul collectors). Other valuable offerings were 1975's “Everybody Gonna Give Their Thing Away to Somebody (Sometime)” and “East Coast Rapper,” released on SoundPlus. Fields spent most of the latter half of the 1970s writing songs for Angle 3, including perhaps his most sought-after single of all, “The Bull Is Coming” b/w “Funky Screw” (credited to Lee Fields & the Devil's Personal Band, which only added to its appeal). His final single with Angle 3 came in 1981, by which time he had finally released a full-length album, Let's Talk It Over; naturally, this also became a rare and pricey collector's item.

Fields lay low for most of the '80s (supporting himself by buying and maintaining rental properties), but in the early '90s he made a comeback, signing with the modern incarnation of the Mississippi-based Ace label. Debuting in 1992 with "Enough Is Enough," Fields plied his trade on the Southern soul and blues circuit, donning the flashy costumes of yesteryear and singing love songs and comedies to a predominantly female audience that had never lost its taste for his musical style. Fields also played keyboards on his Ace albums, including 1995's "Coming to Tear the Roof Down" and 1996's "Dreaming Big Time." In 1998, he switched to Avanti for "It's Hard to Go Back After Loving You."

By then, Fields had already signed with New York's Desco Records, a pioneering label releasing new material aimed at old-school funk collectors. Fields guest-starred on the Soul Providers' 1997 debut album, Gimmie the Paw. He then began performing live with the Soul Providers at Desco's New York showcases and released several limited-edition 45s. In 1998, he became the first Desco artist to release a full-length album, the smouldering Let's Get a Groove On. The band's strict adherence to organic, classic James Brown funk—without synthesizers or drum machines—earned critical acclaim and helped establish Desco among a hip underground audience that previously would have ignored new Fields material.

Desco subsequently spun off into two labels, Daptone and Soul Fire, and once the dust had settled, Fields recorded for both. He released two 7" singles on Daptone in 2001-2002 ("Give Me a Chance" and "Shot Down") and released his next full-length album, "Problems," on Soul Fire in late 2002. "Problems" again received widespread praise from the funk community. Fields then embarked on a fruitful collaboration with producer Jeff Silverman and multi-instrumentalist/producer Leon Michels, with the latter assembling the Expressions to support him. Fields showed he hadn't lost a beat with the powerful "My World," released in 2009 on Silverman and Michels' Truth & Soul label. The relatively smoother "Treacherous" followed in 2011 on the BDA label and featured collaborations with, among others, Parliament-Funkadelic veteran Garry Shider. Fields returned to Truth & Soul the following year with Faithful Man, touring almost non-stop worldwide to widespread critical acclaim.

After a brief hiatus in 2013, Fields returned to the recording studio with the Expressions. A new single, "Magnolia" (a cover of JJ Cale's classic), was released on Record Store Day in 2014, followed by the 11-track "Emma Jean" in early June. Fields & the Expressions continued to tour worldwide and signed with Big Crown Records, another Leon Michels venture. Special Night was described by its creator as a "throwback" album, full of ballads and mellow storm jams. Preceded by the title track in October 2016, the album was released in November. A companion album featuring instrumental versions of the Special Night tracks followed in March 2017. In April 2019, "It Rains Love" was released, an emotionally powerful set of songs rooted in deep soul and featuring two spiritually oriented tracks, "God Is Real" and "Love Is the Answer." Fields re-signed with Daptone, which released "Ordinary Lives" in early 2022. The song, written by label founder (and Let's Get a Groove On producer) Gabriel Roth, marked the bluesier direction taken with Sentimental Fool, released in October.