February 8, 2016

The James Hunter Six Throws a Party You Don’t Want to Miss


The James Hunter Six
Hold On!
Daptone Records

ShoreFire Media

Britain’s James Hunter makes tough old-school R&B with a bracing modern-day kick, so it makes sense for him to gravitate to Brooklyn’s Daptone Records, where the likes of Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley have been doing the same thing for years.

Dispatching 10 songs in a brisk 30 minutes, Hunter’s debut for the label—recorded in mono, of course!—creates the sensation of dropping in on a spirited late-night set in a smoky, crowded club, with Hunter playing the fiery soul shouter to perfection. (No wonder Van Morrison stepped in as an early mentor.) Featuring a pair of sizzling saxes, Hunter’s ultra-tight band cooks with authority, but his swaggering, good-humored vocals and snappy tunes are the main attraction. From the stomping “Free Your Mind (While You Still Got Time)” to the lilting, Sam Cooke-inspired “This Is Where We Came In,” Hold On! is a party not to be missed.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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