You Make It Easy
Keith Washington sounds so much like Luther Vandross, it's eerie. OnYou Make It Easy, Washington regularly employs the Vandross device of starting a phrase deep in his diaphragm and expelling the line in an upward swoosh of rising pitch and dynamics and then trailing off in a wistful sigh. For Vandross, the device is a technique to dramatize his well crafted songs, but for Washington, it's just a gimmick. He uses the trick to establish a romantic atmosphere because his clichéd songs aren't capable of telling a real story. --Geoffrey Himes