Toshi

Toshi Reagon

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 23, 2002)
• Original Release Date: March 2002
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Razor & Tie
• ASIN: B0000640MX
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #50,819 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Toshi rocks! While fusing the soul-stirring spirit of gospel with the folkier strains of social conscience, the expansively ebullient Reagon and ace producer Craig Street (Cassandra Wilson, Joe Henry) have forged a fresh sound that is both contemporary and beyond category. "Mountain Top" and "Ballad of the Broken Word" suggest Tracy Chapman as an Indigo Girl, but such an equation fails to account for the irresistibly engaging pop of "Slippin' Away" and "The Ones Who Love You," the rock propulsion of "I Hate/I Love," and the languid, intimate transformation of the Cars' "Just What I Needed" (in stripped-down duet with Marc Anthony "Chocolate Genius" Thompson). Reagon's vocal warmth throughout reflects a big heart, while her razor-sharp band cuts a series of indelible grooves. Reagon's musical development continues to honor her familial legacy (mother Bernice Johnson Reagon is Sweet Honey in the Rock's matriarch; godmother Toshi Seeger is Pete Seeger's wife), but here she's claiming some artistic turf that is all her own. --Don McLeese

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get your big love, July 17, 2002

By	Peter Hentges (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I caught Toshi and her band live at the Winnipeg Folk Festival this year. First, in a small workshop stage where she traded songs with other artists and generally brought down the house and kept the energy of the session up nearly single-handedly. Later, she opened the final day of the main stage show.

She is a powerful woman who drives that power through her voice and her guitar, reaching into your gut and making you dance like a marionette, rage like a lover wronged or cry like little baby.

Her backing band members support and expand her talent. From the screaming funk of lead guitar to the enourmous presence and steady drive of bass guitar, the band is tight enough for you to feel why they are called Big Love.

Her pedigree only begins to tell you about the soul of this woman. Toshi is gospel, funk, soul. Toshi is a force to be reckoned with.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Big Love. Big Sound. Big New Album., June 1, 2002

By	notaprofessional "notaprofessional" (san francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This broadly gifted and incredibly down-to-earth dynamo has a few albums out, and this is the third in a row to knock my socks off. Toshi Reagon has a big voice and a perceptive mind-her music is rock, folk, blues, beautiful. There are tracks like "Slippin' Away", "I Hate/I Love", "Positive Information", and "Big Love"and "Oh No No No" that really rock and pop. Then there are tracks like "Mountain Top" and "Ballad of the Broken Word" that start of fairly folksy, then build and boom, and blues-belt. The lyrics (her own with a notable exception) are full of meaning, insight, rage, love, and truth.

The last track is a cover of a Cars song; "Just What I Needed" is pure pop in its original, but Toshi's cover is slow, sobering, gentle poetry--like a still fountain by candlelight.

Toshi Reagon is a particularly gifted artist, and this album is arguably her best yet-and certainly a strong indication of good things to come. There's a song for many different moods here, so you can keep it in the player for days.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice surprise, October 5, 2003

By	Richard Harlo (Trenton, NJ) - See all my reviews

I'd never heard of Toshi Reagon before a friend passed on this CD to me. It was nice to find such a great singer with so much new music for me! I've since picked up a couple of CDs and I am in love. She's got a great big wonderful voice that fills you up to the brim. Give the samples for "Big Love" and "Mountain Top" a try. You'll be glad you did.