Pure Soul

With over 20 albums, 40 singles and thousands of live shows over his 50-year career, Lee Fields is the greatest soul singer you’ve probably never heard of. He toured with some of the greatest names in blues, funk and soul in the 60s and 70s, sticking to his roots through career ups and downs until a surprising 21^st century renaissance led a new generation of fans to rediscover his catalogue. The award-winning documentary Faithful Man, filmed over a period of 10 years, offers an intimate living record of the original soul generation within one man’s odyssey to bring pure soul music forward into a new era.

Co-directors Joyce Mishaan and Jessamyn Ansary are part of Fields’ comeback army, and their intensive project with the charismatic singer reflects his creative partnerships with modern music makers as his body of work continues to evolve.“Lee’s relationship to his new, young generation of fans became a key thread in the film,” they say.

“I was immediately struck by the power of his voice, and after looking into him further was convinced that his story needed to be told,” Ansary says. She approached Mishaan, her production teammate on the Emmy-nominated documentary Escape Fire, about recording Fields’ extraordinary resurgence – and after one day of filming Mishaan was all in. “I experienced what we later came to call ‘the power of Lee,’ that dynamic draw that nearly everyone gets when first in his company,” she says. “It’s the feeling of being in the presence of a legend.”

Faithful Man chews thoughtfully over dense concepts of mortality, resilience and creativity while capturing Lee at a personal crossroads: one of the last great frontmen of an American-born music tradition connecting past and present as Ansary and Mishaan build a visual tour of the broader history embedded in his songs. The film spans half a century of music evolution through the eyes of one committed singer who’s covered every inch of rail on a career rollercoaster through shifting trends, emerging genres and evolving technology.

The documentary runs through Lee’s memories as straight as the train tracks of his North Carolina hometown, jointed by vintage home movies, live performances and interviews with music figures like Shirley Caesar, Mark Ronson and Robert Bell from Kool and the Gang. Lee recalls childhood poverty alongside happier memories of house parties and church services where his love of blues, rock n’ roll, gospel, Motown and R&B took root. Combined with his remarkable work ethic and natural curiosity about music’s ability to affect people, Lee became a serious young musician known for his electrifying stage presence.

Faithful Man is buoyant atop his career peaks and keeps the camera steady within its troughs, focusing on Lee’s unsinkable drive to grind, dazzle and innovate in any weather. Advertised as “little James Brown” in the 60s, Lee was a born performer who demanded the best from his peers, producing and promoting high-intensity shows. His star rose as single after single hit the charts, but when the industry shifted toward disco and DJs, synthesizers and CDs, digital production replaced analog recording and soul music struggled to find an audience. Fields kept gigging through the lean decades, bracing himself for the possibility that his career was over. “I was doubting whether or not my chance was ever gonna come,” he admits.

But the late 90s/early 2000s brought the vinyl revival, a digital resistance movement that found waxheads, analog traditionalists and neo soul innovators rediscovering Fields’ catalog. Twentysomethings who felt alienated by the treacly computer-polished pop they grew up with wanted to make their own vintage-influenced music, and Lee was becoming an underground icon of a revered and resurgent era. As Phillip Lehman, cofounder of Desco Records along with Gabriel Roth says, “I was a superfan of Lee Fields, I was collecting his stuff eagerly, but at the same time I had no idea who Lee Fields was.”

Roth tracked Lee down and he signed with Desco in 1996, where studio magic followed. “They were looking to take soul music to another level,” says Lee. “I was really impressed.” He went on to record with producer Martin Solveig, sang with Sharon Jones and played deep funk underground parties in New York City and Europe as audiences and record sales grew. He’s also released six hit records with his band The Expressions, played at Coachella, and lent samples to big names like Travis Scott and A$AP Rocky. His 2022 single “Forever” was the emotional ballad behind the 2023 Super Bowl’s most popular commercial. Lee stands as arguably the greatest soul singer still alive and making music today, and he’s trusting his legacy to younger creatives who understand the importance of curating it– Mishaan and Ansary included. “We share the same vision,” he says. “We want this music to endure.”

Faithful Man condenses half a century of music culture into a 70-minute film like a ship in a bottle, pulling in tight then dilating outward in waves: Fields belting out Don’t Leave Me This Way in his car or gardening with his wife in their New Jersey suburb, then hitting double spins onstage in flashy jackets and leading a global revival of one of the world’s most influential genres at nearly 70 years old. In the opening scene, Lee Fields considers the magnitude of being one of the last performers from a musical era whose founders and original innovators are all but gone. “We’re in a race. Racing against time, not each other, but time.” And after running it alone for decades, a cross-generational cohort of fans, producers and artists is now cheering him on, ready to take the baton. Lee’s real power lies in understanding that his love of soul music is more profound than the fear of failure or the tug of mortality. “I’m not strong enough to quit,” he says. “I can’t.”

Faithful Man is now available on Apple, Amazon, Google Play, Vimeo, Microsoft and YouTube.