Two Little Known 1970's Chess Albums Given A Remaster With T
Mark Barry at Reckless Records, Lon | UK | 05/15/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Bit of an odd one this.
Solomon Burke is usually associated with his early 1960's Atlantic sides, where his guttural torch-song vocals are akin to Otis Redding at his expressive best - genuine, moving and heartfelt - and like Otis, he was considered then to be the real deal. But this release concentrates on something entirely different to those glory days - two long-forgotten and little known albums Burke cut for Chess Records USA in 1975 and 1976. Unfortunately, it's easy to see why they are forgotten when you hear some of the tracks- but more of that later.
As the booklet doesn't exactly tell you what's what - here's the layout:
Tracks 1 to 9 make up the 1975 US album "Music To Make Love By" on Chess ACH-60042
Tracks 10 to 18 make up the 1976 US album "Back To My Roots" on Chess 19002
Track 19 is the non-album B-side to the US-only 7" single "You & Your Baby Blues",
February 1975 on Chess 2159 (the A is on "Music To Make Love By")
Track 20 is the non-album B-side to the US-only 7" single "I'm Going Back To My Roots",
December 1976 on Chess 3003
(the B is on stock copies only, the demo has a repeat of the A-side. The A is on "Back To My Roots")
The good news is that the sound quality is superb, remastered by GARY MOORE at Universal Studios - warm and clear - great work done with the tapes.
The bad news is the material. This is Solomon Burke re-inventing himself as a loverman like Marvin Gaye, Teddy Pendergrass and Barry White - and at times, the results are not just bad - they're laughable. His covers of Ray Charles' classic "Come Rain Or Shine" and his disco take on Cole Porter standard "Night & Day" are both awful. It gets worse with the Barry White heavy-breathing that begins "You & Your Baby Blues" (his last chart entry in Feb 1975 on the USA R&B charts) with lyrics like "you make it hard for me baby..." The same crap starts "All The Way" with his breathy spoken statement "That was beautiful baby... God I wish I could love you like this all the time, 24 hours a day..." I kid you not! Ye Gads!
It's not all crap of course. "Thanks I Needed That" has great brass and rhythm similar to the Chi-Lites at their funky sexy best - very cool. Then there's the slinkiest track on the 1st album, "Midnight And You" which actually works - very Barry White as his grooviest.
Highlights on the 2nd album include the bluesy/harmonica driven "Everybody's Got To Cry Sometime", the AWB guitar funk of "Precious Flower" and the Rufus slow groove of "Over And Over (Hugging And Loving)".
For fans, there is a genuinely fantastic bonus in "I'm Leaving On That Late, Late Train" - a great soul song lost on the B-side of a USA-only 7" - its inclusion here is a genuine find.
So a mixed bag then - half dire, half good - but still worthy of your interest for those sporadic gems here and there."
Disco Duck
Soulboogiealex | Netherlands | 10/26/2006
(2 out of 5 stars)
"Some artists got a little lost when disco raised it's ugly head. Sadly Solomon Burke was one of those artists. Burke did his best material for Atlantic. The singles on that label were classic soul music. Not to be missed by any fan of the genre. He continued issuing some great singles on the Bell label, including the definite version of Proud Mary. After leaving Bell Burke started to slip. In the mid-seventies Burke moved to the Chess label. Despite of the label's reputation for some of the greatest blues recordings and the title of his first album there "Going Back to my Roots" Solomon didn't regain momentum with the label. In a misguided attempt to sound contemporary Burke recorded Barry White like slick and silky disco that sounds uninspired and lacked the depth his material had in his prime days. Even the promising title track of that first album is a lackluster disco effort. Gems like "Everybody's Got to Cry Sometimes" are an exception to the rule. Burke followed that album up with an even less successful effort. "Music to Make Love by" wound up making him sound like a disco duck.
This compilation chronicles Burke's two disastrous albums for Chess, a low point for both the label and himself. It's the exceptions that would warrant a low admission price and a second star. But sadly there are far too little gems here to be milder. My guess is that this compilation is interesting for some fans as a taste of what Solomon did before his first true comeback on the excellent "Soul Alive" album on Rounder in '85, but will be buried and forgotten in your record collection after the first listen. This compilation came out as a budget disc in Europe, I'd advise American consumers to wait until it hits the US as such and take a pass on the expensive import."
Track Listings (12) - Disc #1