Clinton Fearon – Fix It – Review

November 6, 2020

Clinton Fearon: Fix It Single Review by Mr Topple for Pauzeradio.com.

Not only is veteran Roots artist Clinton Fearon a living legend, but he’s also a thoroughly lovely individual. And on top of that, he’s a smart and astute political and social commentator – as his latest single shows.

Clinton Fearon Fix It, released via Boogie Brown Productions, sees Fearon tread a detailed and musically intricate path across an almost Rub-a-Dub sound. But the stripped-back nature of the instrumentation is deceptive – as musically it is much more complex than that.

The track opens with some bold and unapologetic quaver-led ensemble chords from the guitars, keys and vocals, plus accompanying crashes and bangs from the drums. But what’s interesting is that their arrangement works down semitones, giving the feel of something more Jazz or old skool RnB/Doo Wop/Gospel. It’s a grandiose opening, conveying the urgency of the track’s theme well. And it then paves the way for something equally as compelling.

Fix It’s rudimental elements are heavily Roots-based. The keys run a stark bubble rhythm, but with some nicely done additional syncopations at points across the lower end of the treble clef. Lazy drums tinker around a one drop: the kick focusing on the two and four; a snare hitting rim clicks on the same beats and the hi-hats working off a dotted yet lightly-touched riff, with additional open strikes at the end of each bar, and with rolls at the end of every fourth. There’s some lovely additional percussion employed as well, including a vibraslap and the sparsest of tapping blocks which fleet in and out.

Guitars serve two roles within the track. Firstly, an electric one alternates between offering a skank to compliment the keys bubble rhythm and maintain a sense of momentum. At times, it also goes off into a walking riff – again adding pace and a wind to the otherwise laid-back arrangement. Then, its acoustic cousin plays across melodic runs that compliment Fearon’s main vocal, often acting as responses to his calls. There’s nice additional bending across its performance, with some arpeggio chords thrown in for good measure too.

Fix It has a traditional bass line in terms of its arrangement. It is unfussy, focusing on beats one and two, dropping the three and four during the verses but filing them back in on the chorus. Working off a dotted rhythm, the bass melodically focuses on the root triads of the progressions – which overall enhances the swing of the track. Its engineering has been sympathetically done, leaving the bass line there but not overpoweringly so – drawing your ear to the other more intricate lines.

The composition itself is glorious – with those semitone downward runs featuring as the main lead-in motif of the chorus. There’s an utterly Rub-a-Dub bridge, where the instrumentation is stripped away, leaving just the wandering bass and the drums – with the keys occasionally striking chords with a Dub-like dose of reverb added across them. There’s something of the Nyabinghi-meets-Soul-meets-Doo Wop about the backing vocals, too: they drop in with heavily harmonised “yay’s” and “oh’s” at some points; vowel-led sounds at others and then sometimes straight accompanying harmonisation of the main lyrics. And the musical juxtaposition of a major key with the more serious subject matter works very well. Overall, Fix It is a gorgeous piece of composition and arrangement, providing an interesting backdrop for Fearon to go to work.

He has one of the most recognisable voices in Roots; an instrument that has in no way diminished with age. Here, he employs two styles of interpretative performance. On the main verses, Fearon goes for a traditional Roots approach – using heavily dotted notation to accentuate the instrumental wind, along with an infectious melody that works from the third above the tonic, down to the fifth below and back up again. It then repeats this pattern from the fifth above the tonic and so on. But on the chorus after that jazzy riff, he reverts to something more chant-like and almost Gospel in its improvised rhythmic and melodic arrangement. Throughout, Fearon is full of urgency – not over-employing vibrato, instead giving pointed, powerful and crystalline notes at the top of his register. These high-end sections work particularly well towards the end of the track, again invoking a Gospel feel. Lyrically, he is on-point but also utterly ambiguous – as he calls on the people and our so-called leaders to fix this crisis. Of course, the genius of Fearon is it leave you with the question “fix what?” The coronavirus pandemic? Economic and social chaos, poverty and destitution? State-sanctioned violence? Or, as is most likely the case, the noxious capitalist system which has enabled all these things. Ingenious, as always.

Fix It is a powerful and compelling piece of work from Fearon and his team. Musically delicious, the devices and their arrangements that have been employed hark back to a place in time where Roots was authentically unfussy. But then, it’s been cleverly embellished to elevate it above standard fayre. Fearon is at the peak of his powers musically and lyrically – and the whole package is utterly lovely; much like the man himself. Brilliant.