Kelly Finnigan & The Atonements are live in Bristol aboard Thekla on Thursday 30th January 2025. Tickets on sale Friday 4th October via Alt Tickets.
- Distance as a measure of time and place informs Kelly Finnigan’s, A Lover Was Born with a grit and grace that turns passion into virtue. The latest solo release from Monophonics frontman roots itself in the best traditions of midwest soul labels like Zodiac, Capsoul, Curtom, Dakar, and the Bodie Recording Company — legendary labels that took the spirit of Motown and injected it with a little rust belt grit, returning the sweet sound to the factories and streets. A Lover Was Born is a testimony that these deep cut grooves are not resigned to nostalgia, instead, they are at the burning heart of longing and hope. It also serves as a reminder that Kelly Finnigan is a rare mix of composer, singer, and producer — a true soul auteur.
The journey Finnigan takes listeners on over Lover’s eleven tracks echo the state of motion and growth since his solo debut, The Tales People Tell (2019). These two solo records bookend a prolific period of output, including a pair of Monophonics albums, a Christmas album, a mixtape, and a full slate of producing other artists. “There’s nothing like making records,” says Finnigan. “It feels like that’s my purpose — the reason I was put on this earth.”
A Lover Was Born was conceived with the intent of creating a cohesive travelog. Written in California, Ohio, and Staten Island, Kelly Finnigan collaborated with old friends in and outside the studio. “I enjoy working alone but it’s not how you want to make a record…almost everybody I brought in for this album I’ve worked with, toured with or spent a great deal of time with.” Max and Joe Ramey (The Ironsides), Jimmy James (Parlor Greens), Sergio Rios (Orgone), Joey Crispiano (Dap Kings) and Jay Mumford (aka J-Zone) all contribute to the overall sound of A Lover Was Born. “When I’m working on my own work, I’m constantly brainstorming, putting notes in my phone,” says Finnigan. “For this album, I went and hung out with Joey [Crispiano] , my good friend from the Dap Kings. I just went to Staten Island for five days and just hung out and kicked it…there’s about four or five songs on the album we wrote together.”
This intentionality contrasts how The Tales People Tell came together. “I didn’t go into my first album with the idea of making a record. I was just making songs,” recalls Finnigan. “After I had sent a few to Terry [Cole, Colemine Records founder] he said, ‘Why don’t you do four more songs, and you’d have a record.’ I wasn’t really thinking about it!” And while that solo debut (featuring tracks like “I Don’t Wanna Wait” and “Catch Me I’m Falling”) was birthed over a two year period, the concerted effort to create a more singular vision is at the core of A Lover Was Born. “I really waited to make this new album until I had the bandwidth to feel like I had something to say. That’s one of the blessings of being on Colemine… I can stay active and be creative but I don’t feel that pressure.”
That assuredness compliments Finnigan’s journey as a producer. Over the past five years, he produced his cassette-only mixtape (2023’s From Me To You) and helmed the last two Monophonics albums, It’s Only Us (2020) and Sage Motel (2023). Along with capturing his own band’s psychedelic soul sound in the studio, Finnigan engineered fellow labelmates The Ironsides cinematic debut for Colemine (Changing Light) as well as producing Nashville vocal powerhouse Alanna Royale’s Trouble Is, Love Can’t Be Borrowed by lowrider r&b acolytes The Sextones, and underground R&B legend Mike James Kirkland’s upcoming album.
“I love being in the studio. It’s my most favorite place in the world…I take making full records like I’m telling a story,” says Finnigan. “I’m not focused on giving you five juicy chapters. I want you to be captivated from the first word to the last.”
This production work is ultimately where Finnigan wanted his musical journey to take him. Being a singer for a band was the path that helped him achieve his goal. “It’s like I had to become a singer for people to understand that I am actually a producer,” laughs Finnigan. “I was walking around saying I wanted to produce records by the time I was 14 or 15 years old. I’ve known I wanted to do it for a long time.”
The son of a session musician, Kelly began his musical journey as a teenage DJ. “I knew the easiest way I could learn about producing was to just listen to as much music as possible… read the back of the records, those liner notes. Going to record stores, talking with everyone. All of it.” The mixers and faders he rides now may be a long way from those early DJ coffins and turntables, but his studious approach to music remains. “Producing. That’s where it’s been from day one and everything else has taken me on this interesting journey, and now that people are talking about it [alongside the music] it feels like ‘Finally!’”
A Lover was Born not only continues that journey as an artist, but also documents his ongoing love affair with the Midwest. Finnigan’s parents were born in the midwest (Kansas and Ohio respectively), and as a result, he has always had an affinity for the flyover states.
“My dad was born and raised in Troy, OH, so I started coming here since I was a baby…and then obviously you have this full-circle thing with meeting Terry and getting a relationship going with Colemine,” says Finnigan. “And I know the rich history of music and musicians that come from Ohio — specifically in soul, R&B, and funk… I feel very much connected to the midwest. The more I came out [to Loveland] to work with Terry and tour here, the more comfortable I felt out here.” While working on the album, Finnigan decided to move to Ohio, and in many ways A Lover Was Born is a homecoming.
The album opens with the soaring “Prove My Love.” Replete with a signature hammond organ sound and female backup singers (Viveca Hawkins and Kimiko Joy), Finnigan is paced by J-Zone’s shuffling drums — taking the song from Memphis to Detroit by way of the Windy City. This fusion of soul styles rearranges the geography of scenes and sounds, and sets the tone for the album.
- Dramatic influences like Isaac Hayes (check out the piano on “Be Your Own Shelter”) and Jerry Ragovoy are chopped and folded into Northern Soul uptempo numbers to create stompers like “Get a Hold of Yourself” or “Chosen Few”. Finnigan’s take on Deep Soul is captured brilliantly on “Walk Away from Me” and “Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)”, while Boom Bap pervades on hard hitters “His Love Ain’t Real” & “Cold World”. Slower songs such as “Let Me Count the Reasons”, the emotional “All That’s Left”, and the soul-stirring album closer “Count Me Out” show the honest and tender side that has become Finnigan’s calling card. All the while, the voice is raw and earthy — in the best tradition of R&B shouters like Otis Redding, Lee Moses, and David Ruffin.
The songs on A Lover Was Born reconfigure the spliced and sampled DNA of hip hop (extracted by crate diggers like Dilla and RZA) to create something new, underscoring both the spectrum and depth of soul’s subgenres while making a case to the timelessness of Finnigan’s sound.
“As a true lover of soul music, I went into this album wanting to make an emotive record, but loud,” says Finnigan. Embracing his place in this era of soul music, Finnigan finds himself as one this wave’s established statesmen. “I’m becoming one of the older guys. There aren’t a lot of people out here who have shared the stage with Sharon [Jones] or Charles [Bradley]… that’s part of the journey.”
