Righteous Brothers

Last year, O’Dell and veteran Prince sidemen St. Paul Peterson, Kip Blackshire, Kirk Johnson, and Jelly Bean Johnson formed the funkmeister group The Truth. “Me and Chance Howard [keyboards and vocals] wanted to do something,” says O’Dell (who also goes by one name). “We looked for cats. I told [Mint Condition manager] Jeff Taube about it. I said, ‘Just don’t bring no corny cats.’ He sure didn’t.” Most hours outside Mint are devoted to his two daughters, ages seventeen and twelve. “Every last bit of my other time,” he says. “They’re first over everything. I do this job to take care of them.”

Stokley and O’Dell take a keen interest in the rich pool of Twin Cities talent. In January, The New Congress opened for Mint Condition in Long Beach. Stokley says he was glad to help expose the barely two-year-old upstarts. “They’re incredible, breaking in, discovering themselves,” he says. He has also sat in with The Rule—AKA local singer-songwriter Ryan Leistman, who toured with Cyndi Lauper last fall. “Ryan goes from genre to genre, reggae to pop to funk,” says Stokley. “Never misses a beat.”

O’Dell lauds emerging R & B siren Erica West, who opened for The Truth’s inaugural gig at Trocadero in Minneapolis. He occasionally backs her up at clubs and plays on her in-the-works album. “Erica is strong,” he says. “She doesn’t remind me of anybody who’s out right now.” O’Dell says of The Truth bandmate Blackshire (Kip Blackshire, The Eleventh Hour), “That cat has so much soul. Outside of Stokley, he’s my favorite singer around the Twin Cities.”

You might say Stokley backed into stardom as a world-class vocalist. “I guess so,” the frontman agrees with hearty laughter. “I made songs soft and quiet. If somebody listened, I’d stop singing. I was too self-conscious.” Eventually, he got over it, joining the likes of Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, and Teddy Riley of Guy fame as one of R & B’s most distinctive vocalists, and now he commands the stage with both abandon and authority. “I love dancin’ and actin’ the fool out there,” he says. Mint Condition’s 2006 DVD, Live from the 9:30 Club, shows the group onstage in one of their favorite stomping grounds, Washington, D.C. On the disk, Stokley captivates the audience with incredible charisma while his cohorts strut tough with earthy stage presence. With lush backup vocals and session-ace Terry Wesley sitting in on drums, the music mesmerizes.

So, offstage, why aren’t these guys philandering narcissists living out a hedonistic stereotype? Allen replies, “We’re a product of our upbringing.  Our parents instilled certain things within us when we were young.”

Bottom line: These homeboys are making good in their own right.

Dwight Hobbes is a frequent contributor to Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.