Believe it or not, it has been almost 16 years since George Porter, Jr.’s previous solo album, Runnin’ Pardners. With that amount of time elapsed, it’s no surprise that It’s Life features a man who sounds comfortably mature. He’s at home enough in his own skin to admit he gets high watching a woman’s backside as she walks away, and he can sing credibly about the spiritual lift he gets from the blues. He yearns for a simpler, more natural life in the country and he has enough of a sense of responsibility to sing about going to work without complaining.

 

In his hands, Curtis Mayfield’s “Here But I’m Gone,” sounds sad and wise. The song mines tells a similar addiction story to Gil Scott-Heron’s “Home is Where the Hatred Is,” and Porter sings it empathy and a sense of loss, tapping into the title sense that the singer is already gone, but he hasn’t quite faded away yet.

 

The counterpoint to that is the title track, a spare, funky track that recalls Prince playing James Brown. It’s a different groove from much of the record, and he sounds playful as he tells a girl she ought to be with him because “it’s life.” It’s a variation on the argument that it’s natural, it’s the way things are supposed to be, and Porter sings the song as if he knows he’s running a line on the girl and hopes it will work.

 

It goes without saying that everything here is funky, and Porter gets A list help on the album. He only goes off the rails on Leo Nocentelli’s “Lonesome and Unwanted People,” with its predictable “let’s lend a hand” music and lyrics that lack grace and musicality. Even then, though, he errs on the side of friends and noble causes, and far more frequently, It’s Life sounds like the product of a man at peace with who he has become.