About blooming time

Soul revivalist’s powerful third slips between eras to bear witness on the present.

By Stevie Chick.

Curtis Harding ★★★★ If Words Were Flowers ANTI-. CD/DL/LP THE BLACK-and-white video for his recent single Hopeful depicts Michigan-born, Atlanta-based singer/songwriter Curtis Harding accessorising his vintage polyester duds with a Covid mask. He slides behind the wheel of a late-’60s Chevy Nova 350 and drives past murals dedicated to the late civil rights activist John Lewis, on to a parking lot where he delivers his gospel to a simmering Black Lives Matter protest. The clip’s blurring of eras is an act of deliberate anachronism. It infers that we’ve not progressed from 50 years ago, that a continuum of oppression, violence and hatred still prevails - but also, more optimistically, that the spirit to resist, by any means necessary, is equally inextinguishable. The video serves as a smart metaphor for the magic Harding works throughout his…

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MOJO (Digital) - 1 Issue, December 2021

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