Having garnered praise from Randy Newman, Bonnie Raitt and Norah Jones, NYC performer Richard Julian is clearly a songwriter’s songwriter and a musician’s musician. His eye for detail, his careful choice of phrase, and his exquisite musicianship all draw admiration from those deep in the artistic trenches themselves. However, fortune is a capricious power and Julian has had to settle for cult artist status. While the small club forum is the perfect place to hear his songs of urban woe, it’s clear by Julian’s talent and ambition that he’d be best served if able to afford the luxury of a stylized “big” band along the lines of Lyle Lovett, with whom Julian shares a stylistic debt. Sunday Morning, much like the previous Slow New York, comes on slowly and subtly, Julian’s modest street-worn rasp adding the right pathos and experience to the bare acoustics of “A Thousand Days,” the hip street-sway of “Can’t Go Back,” and the enveloping sweetness that haunts “Brooklyn in the Morning.” Worth a closer listen, for sure.
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