Toward the end of the show he began improvising, strumming a guitar unaccompanied on “Cry” and adding jazz and Broadway flourishes to “Must Be Nice.” His band added dense, stern rock to “S.E.X.,” his biggest hit, turning the abstinence plea (“He says if you really loved him, you would give it up/Mama says that’s just a line guys use to get your stuff/Which one will you trust?”) into a sinister creep. Maybe that explained his comfort, which spilled over into his arrangements. Soon after, he won five straight amateur night competitions at the Apollo. In 2002 he was released from prison following a 10-year sentence for arson (that’s his inmate number in the title of his debut). Jennings seemed prepared to offer: “Take off your hat!” “Can we see your face?” He did not acquiesce, keeping his baseball cap pulled low throughout his set, as if he did not want to create any distraction. Women in the audience (and it was mostly women) wanted a little more than Mr. ![]() But on Friday night he was in a lighter mood, running from one side of the stage to the other and smiling throughout. He is an unusually plain-spoken songwriter, and enjoying his music can sometimes feel like a high-minded obligation. With shades of Donny Hathaway and Al Green, he is both gruff and vulnerable, hardened and naïve. But over three albums (including his second release, “The Phoenix,” which went gold), he has cultivated a loyal following outside the mainstream. A socially minded R&B singer, he is an anomaly. Jennings would these largely unapologetic odes to the street life constitute uplift. His show, he said, was “for all y’all who think positivity ain’t out of style.” Transitioning to “Warriors,” from his recent CD “Lyfe Change” “If we die before our time/Tell ’em it was glorious/We were warriors” he thanked the crowd. “Stick Up Kid” was one of its great songs, a dark chronicle of misspent youth, but the version he proceeded to deliver was vibrant and energetic in places, the crowd drowned him out completely in singalong, as if it were a particularly inspirational gospel number. ![]() If you believe that any review contained on our site infringes upon your copyright, please email us.A few minutes into his set at the Apollo Theater on Friday night, Lyfe Jennings stopped his band and said, “Let’s take ’em back to 19” dramatic pause “Hold up, I was in prison.” It was 2004 he was going for, the year when he released his often excellent platinum-selling debut album, “Lyfe 268-192” (Columbia), two years after a long stretch behind bars. #LYFE JENNINGS MUST BE NICE CD PLUS#
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