| Payin' for My Sins | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Grady Champion |
| Cover: | Payin' for My Sins.jpg |
| Released: | 1999 |
| Studio: | Dog House Recording |
| Genre: | Blues |
| Label: | Shanachie |
| Producer: | Dennis Walker |
| Prev Title: | Goin' Back Home |
| Prev Year: | 1998 |
| Next Title: | 2 Days Short of a Week |
| Next Year: | 2001 |
Payin' for My Sins is an album by the American musician Grady Champion, released in 1999.[1] [2] It was his first album for Shanachie Records.[3] Champion supported the album with a North American tour.[4]
The album was produced by Dennis Walker.[5] Champion cowrote or wrote eight of its songs.[6] Alan Mirikitani contributed on lead guitar.[7] "Don't Start Me Talkin'" is a version of the Sonny Boy Williamson II song.[8] "She's Some Kind of Wonderful" is a cover of the Soul Brothers Six song.[3] "Goin' Down Slow" uses the music of the Jimmy Oden song to relate a story of a cousin succumbing to AIDS.[3]
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."[9] 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."[10] The Star Tribune deemed Payin' for My Sins "one of 1999's most stirring blues platters."[11]
AllMusic said that Champion's "voice is rough, more a shouter and screamer than a trained singer, sandpaper over silk, with imprecise phrasings."