The pathbreaking soul vocalist and multi-instrumentalist born Michael Eugene Archer in 1974 in Richmond, Virginia, died last week in New York City at just 51. His passing has prompted a global outpouring of grief and remembrance for an artist who fused the sacred and the sensual and remade soul music for a new generation. Female listeners, especially, had long been attuned to his art. We could sense, perhaps, the women inside his sound. Even when he sang alone, his music carried the influence of female collaborators, muses, ministers, and church mothers who shaped his voice, his arrangements, and his emotional acuity.