Monday, January 09, 2006  

Soldiers of Jah Army:
Keeping the Faith at State Theatre

Washington Post, Monday, January 9, 2006; Page C03

When a band is called Soldiers of Jah Army, you might expect the musicians to be militant, straight-outta-Kingston Rastafarians, their massive dreads flowing past their waists, gigantic chalices burning bushels of weed.

On Friday at the State Theatre, dreadlocks topped the domes of at least three of the five SOJAs, but that's as close to looking the part of a traditional roots-reggae band as the group came: These D.C.-area musicians are white dudes, who not only play reggae music extremely well but also embrace the tenets of the Rastafarian religion.

The 900 fans who packed the sold-out venue didn't question that five pasty-faced guys were performing songs called "Rasta Courage" and "Brothers and Sisters"; the jam-band crowd was happy to dance to the deep grooves laid down by drummer Ryan Berty, bassist Bobby Lee Jefferson and percussionist Kenneth Brownell. Keyboardist Patrick O'Shea added reggae's distinctive offbeat plinks, but the obvious star of SOJA is guitarist and primary singer-songwriter Jacob Hemphill. A lank, sleepily charismatic frontman with a beatific smile, Hemphill has a sweet, soft, soulful voice. His singing can be slightly thin-sounding live, but on CD, such as SOJA's new "Get Wiser," it comes across with passion and depth.

Since the concert doubled as a CD-release party and a live DVD recording, the 22 original songs were broken up into three segments for technical reasons and so that special guests including Go-Go Mickey Freeman from Rare Essence and Eddie Drennon's string quartet could join SOJA onstage. This slightly disrupted the show's momentum, but the adoring audience didn't mind, singing their hearts out to numerous songs, particularly the title track to SOJA's 2002 CD, "Peace in a Time of War." --Christopher Porter

Posted by CP | Link |

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