Rating: NNN
One of the few real finds on Ubiquity’s recent Gilles Peterson Digs America soul jazz comp was the stylish opening cut Didn’t I, by the Bay Area’s real-life Ladies’ Man Darondo. It was good enough for the folks at Ubiquity to want to release a compilation of his three hard-to-find singles, on which the celebrated host of the cable-access show Darondo’s Penthouse sounds like a sleepy Sly Stone doing a bedroom Al Green impression. When Darondo was finally located, he sent the label a box of videotapes of his old cable shows that also included a demo reel of three unissued songs. Our man returned to the studio for the first time in years and dubbed on guitar parts and backing vocals, and the tunes fit nicely with the rest of his jazzy jams on Let My People Go, which is sure to delight fans of old-school indie soul. Hope he gets back to the studio real soon.