"Most writing to date on Holley's unique music does not go far beyond characterizing it as 'unclassifiable'. Yet, while it may not slot neatly into any known musical genre, echoes of earlier styles and artists can be detected. Holley's deep soul explorations of topical subjects and the plight of the poor have antecedents in Gil Scott-Heron's sociopolitical laments on Winter in America (1974), Eugene McDaniel's slow-boil jeremiads on Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse (1971), and even Marvin Gaye's 1971 song 'Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)'. His vocal mannerisms–talk-singing, oblique lyricism, phrase repetition–at times resemble Van Morrison's more abstract efforts: "Beside You' from Astral Weeks (1968) or 'You Don't Pull No Punches, but You Don't Push the River' from Veedon Fleece (1974. He is fond of what could be called the 'Sam Cooke trill' (the way, for instance, Cooke turns the 'know' of 'I know' into a four-note phrase in his 1964 song 'A Change Is Gonna Come'), often using it to bend the last vowel of a line. Long-held notes resolve to a chewy vibrato reminiscent of Al Jarreau and other jazz vocal acrobats. He occasionally adopts the type of gargled growl associated with Louis Armstrong and Tom Waits...Holley's tinkling electric piano impressionistically traces variations on one rich, unchanging root chord, recalling the quieter moments of Miles Davis's In a Silent Way (1969)."