Chuck Prophet is one of those artists I've had on my radar for a quite a few years. But despite his career with Green On Red, as well as his prolific solo career, I only actually own four or five of his albums. Still, it seems to me that his three albums for Yep Roc - including his latest Temple Beautiful - certainly represent a career peak. Up to that point, I considered Prophet to be a quirky and consistently interesting singer-songwriter. Soap and Water, his first for Yep Roc, probably falls into that category as well. But with 2009's Let Freedom Ring!, Prophet set aside much of the interesting quirkiness and became, to my ears, just simply one helluva rock and roller. That record was loose and concise, and for the first time, I connected with Prophet's music in a significant way (it even snuck into my 2009 Top Ten list).
Back in October of 2011, Prophet made the track "Castro Halloween" available for download. Upon hearing it, my anticipation for Temple Beautiful shot up dramatically. Featuring epic guitar work and brilliant storytelling, "Castro Halloween" was easily the best thing I'd ever heard from Prophet - that is, until the whole album arrived a couple of weeks ago. It might still be the best track, but it has serious competition from the rest of the record. The title track recently found its way on Little Steven's Underground Garage program on SiriusXM (declared "Coolest Song in the World", or something similarly appropriate). If you've read any press for Temple Beautiful, you know that Prophet wrote the songs as tribute to his homebase of San Francisco. And there are plenty of colorful, semi-obscure SF figures who populate these tunes. But there is still an aching intimacy that lies at the heart of this record (from "Castro Halloween": "When the shots rang out and two men died, | You took off your mask just to see me cry.").
The music itself is really nothing more than simple rock and roll, with occasional horn or string flourishes. It's jam-packed with brilliant and understated guitar work, often courtesy of Prophet's own Telecaster (one of his many secret weapons). There was a point - the album No Other Love springs to mind - when I thought of Prophet as some kind of neo-soul crooner. He caught my attention even then, but I think it's an understatement to say that he has now found his groove. It's worth noting that he co-wrote the lion's share of Alejandro Escovedo's two most recent albums (Real Animal and Street Songs Of Love), which have revitalized Escovedo's career and reshaped him into a something of rock god as well. So Prophet and Escovedo make extremely likely bedfellows as they both, decades into their career, are making some of the best rock records out there.
Temple Beautiful is out on CD and vinyl now.
