Jimmie Morris, Sr. is a veteran musician who has been in the R&B world for many years. The bassist, producer and songwriter was once a member of the Jacksonians, a.k.a. Lanier & Company, a soul band from Jackson, Tennessee that was formed in 1967 and played with some major artists along the way (including Eddie Floyd and Al Green, among others). Morris has a lot of experience playing classic soul and funk of the 1960s/1970s variety, but on 2014’s Love Is the Rhythm in Me, he favors more of a neo-soul approach. Although there are elements of 1970s soul and 1970s funk on this album, Morris is mindful of the urban contemporary of the 1980s, 1990s and beyond: the production style is influenced by hip-hop and neo-soul, and high-tech programming is combined with real instruments such as organ, electric guitar, harmonica and, of course, electric bass. By drawing on different eras of R&B for inspiration, Morris is able to bring a fairly organic sound to selections like “Keep on Track and Don’t Look Back,” “The Sun,” “When Night Falls” and “Back Then.” On “I Keep Running Back,” everything is programmed electronically; nonetheless, Morris manages to make that tune sounds human and alive rather than stiff and mechanical. Although Morris is the leader on this album and wears different hats (producer, composer, bassist, programmer), he does not handle all of the lead vocals himself. Morris, rather, employs different lead vocalists on different selections, including Kimberly Morris on “Berry Street,” “Stormy Weather” (not to be confused with the Harold Arlen standard) and “Keep on Track and Don’t Look Back,” Jordyn Morris on “The Sun” and Stephanie Beard on “Music.” Jimmie Morris, Sr. himself is the lead vocalist on “Hip Times Hop,” “It Ain’t Gonna Work” and the title track, while the reflective “I Keep Running Back” and the jazz-tinged “When Night Falls” are both instrumentals. And through it all, Jimmie Morris, Sr. successfully keeps one foot in soul and the other in urban contemporary. The classic soul factor is present, yet the production style is clearly from the post-1970s urban contemporary era. The lead vocals on this album aren’t necessarily singing. Kimberly Morris, for example, favors a spoken word approach on “Stormy Weather,” “Keep on Track and Don’t Look Back” and “Berry Street,” while Beard is singing on “Music” and Jimmie Morris, Sr. is singing on “Love Is the Rhythm in Me.” And the vocals on “One Bird That’s Been Killed by Two Stones” include a combination of spoken word from Kimberly Morris and singing from Jimmie Morris, Sr. It is important to note that spoken word is not the same thing as rapping, although some people confuse the two. Kimberly Morris is speaking over music on “Keep on Track and Don’t Look Back, “Berry Street” and “Stormy Weather,” but she is not rapping. What Kimberly Morris does on those songs is different from what rappers like Jay-Z, Kanye West, Eminem and Eve typically do, and it is different from Jimmie Morris, Sr.’s rapping vocals on “Hip Times Hop.” That song is drenched in elements of hip-hop, from the beat to the track to the rapping. So when one factors in the singing, rapping and spoken word that occur on this album, it is evident that Love Is the Rhythm in Me offers three different types of lead vocals. Many vocal-oriented albums offer only singing, while others offer strictly rapping or strictly spoken word. It is not uncommon by any means to hear rappers incorporate R&B singing in the background or for R&B singers to feature rappers on their albums, but it isn’t often that an artist liberally offers spoken word, singing and rapping all on the same album the way that Jimmie Morris, Sr. offers all three on Love Is the Rhythm in Me. And those three types of vocals have no problem coexisting on this release, which sounds cohesive rather than jumbled or unfocused. Love Is the Rhythm in Me is a likable outing from this veteran bassist, songwriter and producer.