Maxwell marks 20 years with visit to Verizon Arena

It has been 20 years since Maxwell burst upon the music scene with a huge, messy Afro and a sexy tenor/falsetto voice that drove his Urban Hang Suite CD -- with hits "Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder)" and "Sumthin' Sumthin'" -- up the charts and on to a Grammy nomination.

Now, having emerged from a seven-year break from recording, Maxwell sports a more mature look befitting his 43 years. But he doesn't sound any less fresh than he did when he first hit the charts.

That's evident on the second of a planned album trilogy. blackSUMMERS'night came out July 1 and is already an Amazon.com best-seller. Maxwell's Arkansas fans are sure to be serenaded from this album during his appearance Saturday at North Little Rock's Verizon Arena. The 8 p.m. concert will also feature performances by Fantasia and Ro James.

blackSUMMERS'night is distinguished from its 2009 incarnation -- BLACKsummers'night-- with the capitalization of "Summers'" rather than "Black." The latter went on to be a 2010 Grammy winner for Best R&B Album. Its breakout hit, "Pretty Wings," debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and stayed nearly 50 weeks on the chart. The song won the 2010 Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.

Part Two originally was to be released in 2012. What happened?

"I just felt like I kind of wanted to live a little bit more ... fortunately and unfortunately," Maxwell says. "But what I love is that what I did now had so much of what I've lived that I feel like if I didn't go through what I went through, I wouldn't have the record I have now. So I'm very pleased about what's happening."

Cuts on blackSUMMERS'night include the slow jam "Lake by the Ocean," released in April as a single. The romantic ballad is quintessential Maxwell, bearing lyrics that have been the topic of discussion and speculation. Other notable cuts include "All the Ways Love Can Feel," which bears a '70s retro flavor; the dreamy "Fingers Crossed," rich in horn and percussion; the sensual "1990x,"which, along with "Lake by the Ocean," is one of the best vehicles for Maxwell's falsetto; and the intense, foot-tap-inducing "Lost."

Neosoul trailblazer

The album serves as a fitting explanation of why Maxwell, influenced by Marvin Gaye, Prince and Nina Simone, is credited as a pioneer of the neosoul movement in the 1990s.

"I think ... it was a collective movement," he says. "It was a time, it was an era, it was what the era wanted. Just like disco kind of flourished in the '70s and rock 'n' roll flourished in the '50s and the '60s. ... Soul -- the progressive-soul movement, I like to call it -- flourished in the '90s and I was blessed enough to be a part of it. And I'm very happy to be in the company that I've been kept in, with Erykah Badu and D'Angelo and all that ... that was kind of happening at the time.

"At the end of the day, I believe soul music is the king and the queen of sound and it will always find its way out somehow through people, eventually. And I'm just happy that I was a part of that group at that time and hopefully [am] continuing that process."

His musical goal, Maxwell says, is to purvey what he refers to as "emotional truth."

"I just want to put the most emotional thing out that I can make ... the most emotional, the most truthful ... the most feeling," he says. He wants his name behind music that touches people and "makes them feel [like] 'Wow, I'm not alone ... there's someone who feels like that too.' That's pretty much the way it is with me."

And he believes his continued success lies in just being himself.

"I think I've grown in that I stick to my artistry as much as I can," he says. "I do what I can to just stay within ... my musical lane, so to speak. And I don't really ... deal with trends ... I just sort of stick to my thing."

The length of Maxwell's career -- which includes another gap between his third album, the 2001 Now and the 2009 BLACKsummers'night -- also places Maxwell among those stars who have been around long enough to have fans among his original fans' children.

"Timelessness takes time, I think," he says. "Not to say that I've created something timeless, but that's what I strive for."

Weekend on 07/14/2016