SLCene Suggests: Allen Stone at The Complex

ALLEN STONE, THE COMPLEX, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 7:30 p.m., $18.50 in advance

Allen Stone’s sound is one of those shining examples of music’s transcendent qualities–its ability to cross barriers like geography, race, religion with ease when its done right. Stone is a small-town boy from Chewelah, Washington, a burg of 1,500 or so north of Spokane in eastern Washington state, getting up to the Canadian border. His daddy was a preacher, and he started singing in church as a 3-year-old. At some point, the songs of Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and the Meters entered his consciousness, and eventually Stone developed one of the most soulful sounds to come from a young artist in a long time–like a male, American version of Joss Stone. His lyrics are shot through with a social consciousness that appeals to the hippie crowd, too. At the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco this summer, he drew a big crowd to hear the songs filling his self-titled album released in 2011.