One of the most anticipated album releases of Black Music Month is Swamp Dogg Contemplates The Afterlife, which by the reckoning of the iconoclastic and much celebrated artist, is his 31st (non-compilation) full-length in a career that stretches back a phenomenal eight decades. The album, out from S-Curve Records digitally on Juneteenth (6/19), with CD and vinyl to follow on July 10, includes “Final Approach,” produced by Swamp Dogg along with along with S-Curve founder Steve Greenberg, Mike Mangini and Sam Hollander, Grammy winners who’ve individually and collectively produced artists including Joss Stone, Tom Jones, the O’Jays, Betty Wright & the Roots, Andy Grammer, Jonas Brothers, Hanson, Digable Planets and Public Enemy.
Swamp Dogg is fresh from appearances earlier this month at the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles and, most recently, a sold-out performance at New York’s Mercury Lounge in conjunction with the Blue Note Festival. Now,on the cusp of his 84th birthday, he commented on the song that is making its debut simultaneously with the album noting, “‘Final Approach’ uses an airliner metaphor but it’s more about a home coming than dealing with the end of life. That’s something that’s inevitable but the life I’ve lived has been truly fulfilling and I remain both hopeful and thankful. I cite some of the music pioneers – Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and Chuck Willis — who went before their time while I’ve come as far as I have for as long as I have and that’s something spiritually uplifting. The great work of those guys lives on, and so do I which is why I’m OK with this ‘final approach.’
I’ve been blessed and that’s something to sing about.”
1. Searching For Heaven
2. Acid Tongue
3. Knock Knock (Memories)
4. Waka Waka Waka (feat. Gary U.S. Bonds)
5. A Million Tears Ago
6. Unhappy Song
7. Please Don’t Bury Me
8. Hot To Trot
9. Daddy’s Little Girl
10. Final Approach