Track Listing

1. Dark End Of The Street
2. These Ain't Raindrops
3. Man Needs A Woman
4. Life Turned Her That Way
5. Freedom Train
6. Pouring Water On A Drowning Man
7. Everybody Needs Somebody
8. That's The Way Love Turned Out For Me
9. To Love Somebody
10. You've Got My Mind Messed Up
11. I'm A Fool For You
12. Losing Game
13. Stronger Than Love
14. Lovable Girl
15. Forgetting You
16. Love Attack
17. She's Better Than You
18. Coming Back To Me Baby
19. That's What I Want To Know
20. Talk Talk
21. I Can't Make It
22. Only Fools Run Away
23. You Don't Want Me
24. Lover's Competition
25. Row Row Your Boat
26. Gonna Send You Back To Georgia
27. Let It Happen
28. Message To Young Lovers

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28307 in Music
• Released on: 2001-11-05
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

CD Description
A seminal deep soul singer with a voice that combined the sheer power of Otis Redding's scratchy holler with the emotional subtlety of Sam Cooke's deathless croon, James Carr routinely tops critics lists of "finest male soul singers," but often goes unrecognized by the general public. His career-making 1967 recording of Dan Penn and Chip Moman's heart wrenching "Dark End of The Street" is the definitive take on the song, easily besting versions by the likes of Aretha Franklin and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Incredibly, the rest of his catalogue more than matches this high standard. Kent Records' superb COMPLETE GOLD WAX SINGLES compiles all the singer's sides for Quentin Claunch's tiny Goldwax imprint. "The Dark End of The Street," "Love Attack," and "Girl You Got My Mind Messed Up" are acknowledged deep soul classics, but lesser-known cuts like the driving "Freedom Train" and the Solomon Burke-influenced "Lovable Girl" are equally impressive.

Customer Reviews

James Carr - The Worlds Greatest Soul Singer
James Carr's is the perfect soul/rock 'n' roll mystery story - unless you
happened to be James Carr. To many deep soul aficionados, Carr is the greatest
soul vocalist of all time, better than Otis, Aretha, Marvin, the lot. For the soul obsessive, this
collection of every A- and B-side from Carr's peak 1966-70 period is a bona
fide Event.

Don't feel too disappointed if the music doesn't hit you hard on first listen.
The Memphis-derived horns, organ and guitar is so like Stax you can almost call
the chord changes, as well as hearing how Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and The Band
picked up and ran with Carr's spooky country-soul ball. But Carr is addictive,
and he defines deep soul because he is not as extravagantly showy as a Redding
or an Al Green. His definitive performances - 'A Man Needs A Woman', 'Life
Turned Her That Way', the Bee Gees' 'To Love Somebody', 'You've Got My Mind
Messed Up' and his best-known classic, the infidelity-as-existential-doom
masterpiece 'The Dark End Of The Street' - showcase a swelling yet restrained
baritone, a desire to inhabit and submit to the depth of the lyric, an
interpretive mastery. When the screams and wails do come, they are not ecstatic
releases of tension, but the last gasps of a drowning man.

One of the great soul singers
The last review ("row, row your boat elsewhere") is one of the stupidest I've read in 5 years of buying CDs on Amazon. I can only conclude that the reviewer either (a) doesn't like southern soul music (in which case, why bother reviewing this album?) or (b) has listened to too much of it and lost the plot.

James Carr is widely regarded by people who know what they're taliking about (eg respected roots music writer Peter Guralnick: if you're interested, try reading his "Sweet Soul Music") as one of the great southern soul singers.

This compilation has several excellent examples of the southern soul style - Carr's impassioned vocals, great Stax-ish horn lines, tasteful Steve Cropper-style guitar licks, etc. All the ingredients of the classic southern soul sound.

"Dark end of the street" is Carr's best-known song, but also listen to "These ain't teardrops", "A man needs a woman", or my favourites "Pouring water on a drowning man" and "Fool for you", both of which demonstrate that Carr could handle up-tempo numbers just as well as the ballads which were his trademark.

Ignore the last review and check this out.

How have I missed this?
I've always been a fan of 60's soul music and am amazed that I've only recently discovered James Carr, thanks to a recent BBC series.
What a voice! There are some real classic soul tracks on this album and I give it 5 stars for that reason.You must own "Dark End of the Street" if you love this type of music.The whole arrangement is just perfect.
The album is, as it says, the complete singles, so there are all the B sides and sometimes it's clear which these are. However, the gems are worth the purchase price.
Don't expect Otis - this guy is different.