WHAT CAN WE DO? IS THERE AN ANSWER TO ANTHONY PAULE’S QUESTION?

APSO - Anthony Paule Soul Orchestra in studio.

Already on his previous album released close to two years ago, Anthony asked What Are You Waiting For?, and now he returns with another question, What Can We Do? This time his musical question does not come out on Blue Dot Records but on www.nolabluerecords.com out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The release date of this new APSO - Anthony Paule Soul Orchestra – album is July 24, 2026.

Anthony Paule: “We recorded three albums with a great singer named Frank Bey. In fact, the APSO was started because of a call to back up Frank, back in 2007. After those three records Frank recorded two more albums, the last of which was a Grammy nominated release titled All My Dues Are Paid on Nola Blue Records. Fast forward to November 2024, and Sallie Bengtson had booked Nola Blue Revue to perform at the Lucerne Blues Festival in Switzerland. We also performed at the festival, and so we got to meet Sallie in Switzerland and we hit it off. In 2025 she was releasing a Christmas compilation album titled Winter Wonderland, with various Nola Blue artists. We had recorded the APSO with Frank Bey singing William Bell’s Christmas classic, Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday. Sallie decided to license the track for her Christmas album. Not long after that she issued a memorial album titled Peace with a collection of various Frank Bey tracks. We had recorded Little Milton’s That’s What Love Will Make You Do with Frank, but it had never been released. Sallie decided to make it the lead off track for the album.”

“In 2025 we were planning to record a new album. Having a great feeling about working with Sallie, and Nola Blue, we gave her a call see if she’d be interested. Without hesitation she was immediately enthusiastic about the idea. We struck up an agreement and here we are about to release our first album together! We are super excited about working together and looking forward to what opportunities the album will bring!” Some of the other artists in Nola Blue’s roster include Benny Turner, Curtis Salgado, Candice Ivory, John Nemeth and Trudy Lynn.

On What Can We Do? the lead producer is Larry Batiste. You can read more about him in the second part of this article. Anthony and his wife, Christine Vitale, are co-producers, as well as the superb Willy Jordan (his bio: Introducing Willy Jordan, 2024 Interview | Soul Express), who is the lead vocalist. The music was arranged by Anthony, Larry and the “key player” Tony Lufrano.

  The APSO members are the musicians on this set. Besides Anthony (on guitar) and Tony (on Hammond B3 and piano), the other two rhythm section players are Timm Walker on bass and Bowen Brown on drums. The horn section consists of Derek James on trombone, Ethan Pires on trumpet, Charles McNeal on tenor sax, Johnnie Bamont on baritone sax, and the background vocalists are Larry Batiste, Omega Rae and Nona Brown.

STILL SMELLIN’ SMOKE

  The opening track is a fast and vigorous beater, which includes guitar and tenor sax solos. On lead vocals there are Willy Jordan and “More Cowbell.”Anthony: "There is a cowbell on the track, but More Cowbell is a joke! There is a famous comedy skit of this title from the Saturday Night Live TV show back in the 80s or 90s. The skit features Christopher Walken. You can find it easily on YouTube. Almost every American musician knows and loves this skit! It’s hilarious!”

  The songwriting unit of Christine Vitale, Larry Batiste, and Anthony Paule wrote altogether eight new songs for this set, and Willy Jordan was the co-writer on four of them, including the opener, Still Smellin’ Smoke.

  Too Late is a heartbreaking soul ballad, with very emotional delivery from Willy – the torch song of the album! Stranger is a mid-tempo toe-tapper, whereas the current single, You Lie Like a Rug is a brass-heavy, energetic bouncer, which has a witty ending in lyrics. Larry Batiste is the co-vocalist on this track.

  Anthony’s song Bigger Guitar is a high-speed instrumental, and includes solos by Anthony on guitar, Derek James on trombone, Tony Lufrano on Grand Piano and Ethan Pires on trumpet. Anthony: “It’s like a Part Two of Big Guitar which is the title track of my first solo album from 1995. I was going to call is Part II but Christine renamed it Bigger Guitar”

Anthony Paule in studio.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

  The title song was co-written by Marcel Smith (his bio:The Marcel Smith Story | Soul Express). The song was one of the highlights on Marcel’s from My Soul album in 2023. This poppy ditty has distant echoes of doowop, and the track includes Charles McNeal’s tenor sax solo. The Sons of the Soul Revivers are on background vocals.

  Anthony:“This is one of four songs we wrote this with Marcel during the pandemic. The other three are I’m Coming Home to You, If You Miss Me, and Where Is Justice, which was released in 2022 as a digital single (and on a CD compilation from the Sacramento Blues Society) with Marcel singing and re-recorded with Willy Jordan on our last album in 2024. You can hear our version with Marcel on our YouTube channel. At the time we were writing songs together and planning to record an album with Marcel but due to the pandemic, it never came to be. I’d like to note that it’s very sad this was the second to last recording in Walter Morgan’s life. He recorded one more session at Greaseland, and passed away less than a month later.

  On this track as well as two others – Secret and Blue Mood Indica – Endre Tarczy plays bass, Kevin Hayes drums and Rob Sudduth baritone sax. Anthony: “These three tracks were recorded earlier, in 2024, but not released on the What Are You Waiting For? album.

  My Heart Never Says Goodbye is a smooth and melancholic ballad, which grows towards the end. The rhythmic and tight-groove Secret inspires Willy into a resolute vocal delivery. Anthony: “It was released in 2025, but at that point we weren’t sure it would be included in the album. We released it in order to submit for a BMA nomination. The version on the album is a slight re-mix and re-mastered version from the single.”

  If It Ain’t One Thing It’s Two is a hurried shuffle and features lyrics that tell about an unexpected situation in a relationship. Walkin’ slows things down into a mid-tempo swayer, and now Willy sings this poppy and melodic song in a higher register. The song You’re Nobody till Somebody Loves You dates back 80 years, and Dean Martin made it a hit in the 1960s. Here we can enjoy a bluesy, downtempo version with Charles McNeal’s tenor sax solo.

  The closing song is a horn-heavy instrumental. This lounge jazz type of a number introduces a fill by its co-writer Anthony Lufrano on Hammond and solos by Anthony on guitar and Charles on tenor sax. The song is called Blue Mood Indica. Anthony: “The title is a play on words with Mood Indigo, becoming Mood Indica which is a reference to Marijuana. This is due to the dreamy quality of the tune. There is no earlier recording, although we’ve played this live for a few years.”

  Packed with rich “old school” sounds created by real instruments, inventive songs and arrangements, this multifaceted album is another musical triumph for APSO, Anthony and Willy, and everybody involved.

(Interview conducted on July 12; acknowledgements to Anthony Paule and Sallie Bengtson).

Larry Batiste.

LARRY BATISTE

  As I wrote above, Larry Batiste is the lead producer of APSO’s latest album and the co-writer of nine songs out of twelve on the set. His active collaboration with APSO doesn’t restrict to orchestra’s recent recorded music only, but he has also toured with APSO, for instance he performed at the Porretta Soul Music Festival in Italy in 2018.

  Larry is a producer, arranger, songwriter, publisher, musician and a singer, who has worked in different roles with such artists as Narada Michael Walden, Mary Wilson, Dazz Band, the Chi-Lites, the Spinners, Al Jarreau, the Dramatics, the Stylistics, Patti Austin, Lenny Williams, Tony Saunders and John Lee Hooker, to name just a few. Larry is a true all-rounder in music business.

  Larry: “I was born in Fairbanks, Alaska.  My parents, who are from the south (Lake Charles, Louisiana and Port Arthor, Texas), moved to Oakland California as young adults, then travelled to Fairbanks, Alaska where I was born; then back to Oakland when I was 2 years old, where I grew up playing in bands and writing songs for them."

  “Growing up in Oakland, CA exposed me to very diverse genres of music.  As I walked through the neighbourhoods of Oakland, I could hear bands practicing in their garages playing everything from blues, soul, Latin, and jazz.  I loved Bobby Blue Bland, Sly Stone, Bobby Womack, Curtis Mayfield, Atlantic, Motown, and Stax Records.  In my collage years, I added David Bowie, Elton John, James Taylor, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Steely Dan to the mix.  I learned to write songs from listening to my favourite records and analysing why I liked them.  Later, I started to collaborate with people who I considered to be great lyricists like Andre Pessis and Christine Vitale.  I fell in love with the whole process—writing, recording, and seeing how people reacted to the music. It’s very satisfying.”

  “I played trombone in elementary school and began writing songs, playing, arranging, and singing in local bands in high school.  My first big break was meeting a percussionist named Bill Summers, who orchestrated the percussion for the docu-series Roots soundtrack produced by Quincy Jones.  Bill later joined the Herbie Hancock group, the Headhunters.  After the success of Headhunters, Bill went solo and wanted to work with young writers and producers.  Someone put him in touch with me and my friend, Claytoven Richardson, a frequent collaborator.  Together, we wrote and produced albums for Fantasy Records (On Sunshine) in 1979 before signing to MCA Records in 1981 where we released several highly acclaimed albums including Call It What You Want in 1981, who’s single of that title was a top Billboard hit, Jam the Box 1983, and others. The group was called Bill Summers and Summers Heat.”

Larry Batiste in 1990.

WHITNEY HOUSTON, VAN MORRISON…

  In addition to collaborations with the artists listed above, there are a few projects that Larry is especially fond of. “Besides the Anthony Paule Soul Orchestra projects, I have many great memories regarding my participation of projects in several music genres:

* Billy Branch’s The Blues Is My Biography (featuring Bobby Rush, Shemekia Copeland, and Ronnie Baker Brooks) – Producer & Arranger 2025

* Harrell Davenport’s Young Rell album – Horn Arranger and Background Vocals; #1 on several blues charts 2026

* Santana’s Supernatural album – 33 million copies sold/11 Grammys – bkgrd vocals 1999

* Van Morrison’s Somebody Tried to Sell Me A Bridge – Bkgrd vocals/vocal arrangements 2026

* Whitney Houston & Kygo’s Higher Love remix – 2 million copies sold – Bkgrd vocals 2023

* Charlie Wilson’s You Are - #1 on Billboard for 16 weeks/Grammy nomination – co-producer, horn & string arranger 2010

* All of Bill Summers’s and Summers Heat recordings 1979-1983

  Apart from working on certain artists’ recordings, Larry has contributed to soundtracks as well as music administrative work. “I’ve been fortunate to arrange and perform on songs used in soundtracks such as Hunchback of Notre Dame, Snow Dogs, as well as vocal contracting and performing on tracks for the movie musical film Rent. I have song credits on the television shows that include Jag, Nash Bridges, Passions, and All My Children. And in 2023, I was nominated for “Best Song Written for Television by the Guild of Music Supervisors.”  

“I no longer musical direct the Grammys pre-televised show, which I did for eight years. I have been a National Trustee for the Recording Academy (Grammys) for a several decades. I termed out as Trustee in 2025 and decided not to run for more terms. However, I am still on the board of Governors for the San Francisco Chapter and sit on various National Committees that determine the future of the academy.”

LARRY AND APSO

“I met Anthony Paule and Christine Vitale 30 years before joining the band through mutual musicians, but never seriously worked with them until the Frank Bey record” (in 2015).

  “Out of the blue, Anthony Paule called and asked me to sing background vocals for the Frank Bey record he was working on. The best part? He completely trusted me to lead the session and record any vocal parts I created. The next project was the album After a While, which featured Wee Willie Walker. I repeated the same assignment.” 

  “In 2018, Anthony invited me to join APSO in Porretta. I’d always admired Christine Vitale’s songwriting and as it turned out the feeling was mutual. As soon as we returned from Italy that year, we started writing songs together, which lead to collaborations for the album, Not in My Lifetime. It was reassuring to sit next to veteran producer, Jim Gaines and hear him say on many occasions, ‘What am I doing here, you all are very prepared, and know exactly what you’re doing’. When Wee Willie Walker passed away 3 days after making the recording, we paused a bit, then mixed and released the album. After the highly acclaimed success of that album, we worked with vocalists Marcel Smith and Terrie Odabi for a short time before landing the very unique and extraordinary vocalist Willy Jordan.” 

  “As with What Are You Waiting For, I wanted to first and foremost continue with the advice and philosophy that one of my mentors, Quincy Jones imparted with me. And that was to never polish the shine off of the artist you are producing.  In other words, do not spend time worrying about perfection, but instead embrace the uniqueness of your artists.  Keep all raw and authentic performances. Willy Jordan is an artist of unpredictable phrasing and musicality.  Perhaps because he is also a drummer.  The key is to provide a roadmap, then make space for magic to happen in the studio.  Most of the work is done before we arrive at the studio in terms of songwriting, which provides a solid foundation. I feel that writing great songs are our superpower.  One of my favourite quotes (coined by myself) is “a great production without a great song is like building a mansion on quicksand”.  With What Can We Do, we made a conscious effort to connect with our audience regarding topics that we all care most about, the state of world, humour, love and loss. The sound on What Can We Do is more unpolished, raw, and live sounding.”

LARRY’S BOOK

  “I will continue my work with the APSO as well as work with new and upcoming artists. I started filming a documentary on the history of Black music in Oakland, where I will host and spend 2-3 days with musicians in their environment.  I recently shot my first segment with global artist and 3x Grammy winner Fantastic Negrito from Oakland. I will also continue to support my #1 best-selling book on Amazon, The Art and Business of Songwriting, 2024, Oxford University Press as well as create new editions.”

  “Please continue to support independent artists. Music is the only medicine that will save us!”

(Interview conducted on July 11th; a big thank you to Larry!)

© Heikki Suosalo