Lee Fields found magic in his basement

There was a time when soul singer Lee Fields thought he was done, washed up before he ever got a chance to be somebody. He had spent more than 20 years on the margins of fame, pinballing between record labels and working a string of minor hits, to rapidly diminishing returns.

By the ’80s he was clinging to his dream by his fingernails. He invested in real estate and was a landlord for a while. It was an adjustment: Most people are happy to see a musician, even a semifamous one; few people are ever happy to see their landlord. “I was still in music in the ’80s, but it was a sparse situation,” Fields recalls in a recent phone interview. “I had a family. … There are many cases today where young men should just man up like I did. You gotta keep food on the table. I can pray that things will transpire into something that I want, but people want to see cash.”

Fields, who now lives in Plainfield, N.J., was ready to invest some of his real estate money in a restaurant, which would have effectively ended his career. “I had that thought that it was probably all over for me. You have to accept reality. My confidence got to a point where it was wavering,” says Fields, who will perform two local shows this weekend as part of the Blues at the Crossroads tour headlined by Irma Thomas. “I was gonna get a little fish place. (My wife) encouraged me to take that money and go back to music. She was very sure that I didn’t know anything about running a fish place.”

Fields bought recording equipment and dragged it down to his basement. It languished there for a while, until someone finally explained to him how it worked. He began tinkering with what would eventually become “Meet Me Tonight,” a Southern hit that landed him a record deal. “When I bought the equipment and I started recording, I started to feel like I was supposed to feel,” Fields recalls. “Something was right about that, and ever since that moment it’s been nonstop. … Since ’91, it’s been a nonstop happy experience.”

Fields divides his career into two parts: before the basement and after. Born in rural North Carolina, he had been plugging away since the late ’60s. Fields had a voice like a miracle, with raspy edges and a liquid center, with a vocal resemblance to James Brown that was so pronounced they used to call him “Little JB.”

He had a few small, regional hits (“Let’s Talk it Over,” “Take Me Back,” “Stop Watch,” the latter a mid-’80s Hail Mary foray into funk) but often was just the guy you called when you couldn’t get James Brown. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, Fields cycled through different backing bands. He was briefly in Kool & the Gang.

After the success of “Meet Me Tonight,” he recorded steadily through the ’90s and ’00s, at least once for Daptone Records, home to Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley, and famous for its ability to repackage grizzled legends as vintage soul stars for the consumption of the hipster audiences that are a core component of Fields’ fan base.

Those audiences came along just as Fields, then decades into his recording career, was finally finding his feet. “In the ’90s, I really found myself,” Fields says. He had suffered from a careerlong identity crisis, in part because of the constant, ego-deflating comparisons to Brown (they finally met before Brown died — this helped a lot). Also complicating things: Fields, 64, has been blissfully married to the same woman for 43 years. A happy personal life can make things difficult for a soul singer, who is at his best when brokenhearted.

Fields says he treats his sad songs as if they were acting roles. “If I’m singing about heartbreak, at that moment I’m really heartbroken. I’m like an actor. I’m a storyteller, so I become the character. I am that person that I’m singing about. A lot of times when I come offstage, I have to snap out of character.”

Fields and his band the Expressions now record for Brooklyn label Truth and Soul, which released his latest album, “Emma Jean.” He’s a big believer in consistency, in plugging away at the thing you do best until people finally begin to notice, even if it takes decades. Unlike pop stars, soul singers only get better with time, he figures.

“I listen to my voice at an early age, say, 18, 19. If I want to cut that track, I can sound very close to what I did at that age,” Fields says. “But the molding of time, what it’s done with my voice, I’m very pleased. I think now it’s more colorful, maybe, because I’ve figured out who I am. I’m very appreciative of what time has done. I wouldn’t change it.”

onthetown@tribpub.com

Twitter @chitribent

When: 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Where: Wentz Concert Hall, 171 E. Chicago Ave. Naperville (Saturday); Thalia Hall, 1227 W. 18th St. (Sunday)

Tickets: $50-$65; 630-637-7469 or tickets.noctrl.edu (Saturday); $26-$46; 312-526-3851 or ticketweb.com (Sunday)