Payin' for My Sins is an album by the American musician Grady Champion, released in 1999. It was his first album for Shanachie Records. Champion supported the album with a North American tour.
Production The album was produced by Dennis Walker. Champion cowrote or wrote eight of its songs. Alan Mirikitani contributed on lead guitar. "Don't Start Me Talkin'" is a version of the Sonny Boy Williamson II song. "She's Some Kind of Wonderful" is a cover of the Soul Brothers Six song. "Goin' Down Slow" uses the music of the Jimmy Oden song to relate a story of a cousin succumbing to AIDS.
Critical reception
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote that "Champion's strengths in this sometimes funky, always soulful outing, are his strong vocals and songwriting skills, in which he blends his urbane vision into a traditional style." The Independent opined that the production gives the "material a subtlety and classiness not shared by much of the competition." The Philadelphia Inquirer concluded that "you can hear echoes of [Robert] Cray in tracks such as 'You Got Some Explaining to Do', with its tension between the pointed lyrics and smooth, horns-and-organ groove... But his engagingly robust and reedy voice gives Champion a commanding presence of his own." The Clarion-Ledger opined that "Champion's gravely voice and more than capable harmonica make this a very entertaining album." The Star Tribune deemed Payin' for My Sins "one of 1999's most stirring blues platters."
AllMusic said that Champion's "voice is rough, more a shouter and screamer than a trained singer, sandpaper over silk, with imprecise phrasings."
Track listing
References