Al Olive - Dream (2010)

Al Olive has been singing professionally since 1995, when he was with a group from Arkansas called 3-D Soul. For a time, he also lived and worked in Michigan, and finally relocated to Dallas. Olive recalls how he bumped into Rick Rigsby and Linny Nance at an outdoor music festival, where they let him perform the late Luther Vandross' Superstar. He would wind up working with Nance for a year or so, before receiving a call from Rigsby: 'We're trying to get Buster Brown Band back together...you interested?' Olive chuckles as he recalls his audition for Rigsby and BBB drummer Lawrence 'Peebody' Ferrell. ' I got the eyebrow...and various other facial expressions...then the head nodding' he laughs. It goes without saying that the Big Kahunas were impressed, the verdict was in, and so was Al Olive. Although he is not the only lead singer in the band (other front-men include Roger Burton, James Kings and Kelly McNulty) he often gets the lion's share of attention from the females in the audience. A recent performance at Pearl @ Commerce found him fending off the advances of one extremely 'friendly' young woman who kept....well, you should've been there. Olive takes it all in stride and says he always tries to keep the focus on the band and it's performance. Of his work in progress, Olive says '...this CD, entitled Dream...was 2 years in the making. You have to get the right music, and then the right people, the right chemistry' he continues. Although he credits Buster Brown Band, Linny Nance, Rick Rigsby and others he works with, Olive was greatly and pleasantly surprised with the creativity and inspiration that came with Frank Hames - also formerly with BBB. 'I just love working with the guy' beams Al. 'The instrumentals, the arrangements....things that I've had in my head. He has been the one that helped pull that out.' In the up-tempo Never, Olive promises his lady love 'I'm the man you've been waiting for. I command all your fears to leave...you'll never be lonely' while he slows things down just a bit in Heartache, in which he laments to an estranged lover that although 'a man's not supposed to cry (and he's 'a man, through and through'), it's too late!' Then, on Beautiful Stranger, things heat up again as he croons to his 'beautiful, wonderful, mind-blowing stranger...my lips on your lips, my hands on your hips...' Album also features the awesome song 'Slow Down', which is featured on the Soultogetherness 2010 album, released by the Expansion Records. UK based record label. This music has just about everything an R&B lover could ask: the production, the instrumentation - top shelf. The background vocals are on point. And Al Olive's voice is just about as close as you will get to flawless. Remember, he auditioned with a Luther song. Now, you and I have seen folk get booed off stage for trying to cover a Luther song, right? This man's voice sounds so close to Luther's that at times it's downright eerie. Other times, he sounds alot like Will Downing. And every time he opens his mouth, he sounds really, really good. Ladies, you absolutely won't be disappointed. Guys - you DO want to play this record for the girl you are trying to get or the one you've already got that you want to, uhm, inspire.