Stax
2008
Pebble To A Pearl
About This Album
Like every other new millennium nu-soul diva, Nikka Costa wound up being overshadowed by Amy Winehouse, the neo-soul singer who catapulted over all her rivals with Back to Black, an impeccable updating of classic soul whose modern updates were flair, not foundation. It was the inverse of the formula Costa and her producer/husband Justin Stanley pursued beginning with her 2001 debut Everybody Got Their Something, which not so coincidentally was co-produced by Mark Ronson, Winehouse's producer; a bit of history that had to sting for Nikka. Ronson's influence can be heard on Costa's third album, 2008's Pebble to a Pearl, but not to the extent it was on Everybody Got Their Something, when his DJ roots shone through. Here, it's his adoption of the Daptones as house band and subsequent revival of '60s soul that provide Costa and Stanley with their template, but the duo take it far further than Ronson did with Winehouse, who retained a bit of modernity in his tight, sequenced rhythms, in favor of an old-school vibe built upon live instruments. Costa's freedom to move is as much as a reaction to Winehouse as it is to her clean break from Virgin records (who by definition needed her to compete with Christina Aguilera), and her move to Stax records, the storied Southern soul label whose legacy looms large on Pebble to a Pearl.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.