URL: https://www.hughiemac.com/
With a familiar strut, a classy piano welcomes us as we enter “Let’s Get Away,” the new single from acclaimed crooner Hughie Mac, whose album Hughie Mac Sings Some Great Songs, Pt. 3has been garnering it’s fair share of praise from critics and fans alike lately. “Let’s Get Away” as it was originally recorded by Frank Sinatra is a staple of American vocal pop music, and Mac gives it the studded treatment that the song deserves in his rendition, which evokes as strong an emotional response as the original did without borrowing too heavily from Sinatra’s signature style of attack. While pop music has significantly evolved in the past seventy years to the point where some would even call it unrecognizable in comparison to its earliest offerings, there’s something really magical that never ages in a tune like this one, which Mac brings to life with his elegant vocal alongside a plethora of additional treasures on his latest release. There’s plenty of reasons to fall in love with his sound, but chief among them is his endearing approach to melodies, which transports fans of all ages to a simpler, and arguably much more intriguing, time in music history.
SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/user-271952191
The beats the frame “Let’s Get Away” are playful and bouncy, toeing the line between jazz minimalism and poppy showmanship. Mac swaggeringly dispenses the lyrics in a casual tone, as if he were sharing intimate remarks with us over drinks at some exotic destination resort. He matches the rhythm of the percussion with his agile approach to the microphone, and even when the piano is giving him a run for his money, there’s never any doubt who is in charge of all the action in this track.
I HEART RADIO: https://www.iheart.com/artist/hughie-mac-31803747/songs/lets-get-away-57892690/?autoplay=true
Mac’s sophisticated drawl never comes off as holier than thou or self-righteous; if anything, he’s one of the more accessible and organically designed vocal acts I’ve heard in the last ten years (and there have been no shortage of artists experimenting with this retro-style tonality). The band’s play is cosmopolitan and refutes the notion of this being a somewhat rustic composition with their tight arrangement of the instrumentation.
Hughie Mac has built quite the name for himself among independent music aficionados who enjoy classically-structured pop singles that stay true to the narrative of the great American songbook and reject the idea that an oldie can’t be a goodie. His last couple of releases have been stunning to say the least, and in this track he continues to assert himself as one of the last legitimate singers from the golden age of western pop. So many artists try to look toward the past for some sense of direction in forging their sound, but few have the required complexities within their sonic profile to perform the time-honored soundtrack that laid the foundation for their existence. Mac is one of a kind in every way, and while 2019 is slated to have some memorable releases from a bevy of performers across countless genres, you’re not likely to find a single as sweet and surprisingly erudite as you will in “Let’s Get Away.”
I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/lets-get-away-single/1439867390
Jamie Morse