Track Listing

1. Don't Give Up On Me
2. Fast Train
3. Diamond In Your Mind
4. Flesh and Blood
5. Soul Searchin'
6. Only A Dream
7. The Judgement
8. Stepchild
9. The Other Side of the Coin
10. None of Us Are Free
11. Sit This One Out

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17157 in Music
• Released on: 2002-07-22
• Number of discs: 1

CD Description
Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Van Morrison--the stellar list of songwriting contributors on this comeback effort by '60s soul legend Solomon Burke goes on and on. Did we mention Brian Wilson, Nick Lowe, and even his highness Bob Dylan also donating tunes? Burke came to prominence when soul music was astaple on AM radio as performed by himself and peers Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, and Aretha Franklin. Contemporary R&B singers from the endlessly melismatic school could learn a thing or two from Burke's passionate restraint. As producer, thesinger-songwriter Joe Henry takes a page from the Daniel Lanois (Dylan, Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris) school favouring natural sounds, deep resonance, and subtly spectral reverb. There is much reverence to the past in this relatively stripped down approach, but it is also perfectly evident upon close inspection that this is a contemporary album.
Burke hadrecently been active singing in church, and on this effort he shows that he hasn't forgotten where he came from, bringing along his parish's tasty organist, Brother Rudy Copeland.The tone throughout is primarily serious, occasionally solemn, and then along comes the straight-ahead blues by Dylan to inject the proceedings with playful self-pity and -mockeryon "Stepchild" (as in "You treat me like a"). Honourable mention goes to Fat Possum Records for having the foresight and inspiration to re-introduce an overlooked American gem to a mainstream audience.

Customer Reviews

Get the throne ready
The "King of Rock & Soul" ascends his throne in all his glory with this tremendously refreshing comeback album. It's refreshing in every sense of the word. It's sound is refreshing and intimate. It's refreshing that a soul album on a soul artist, legendary or not, (But in particular a legendary one) is just that, soulful. Recorded live in the studio with a great cast of musicians, this album should bring deserved attention to the small Fat Possum record label in Oxford, MS. The songs on this album were all proudly contributed to Burke by some of the most respected people in the business. Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, and Brian Wilson are just the most famous of the lot. Morrison's songs are two of the better ones on the album, particularly "Fast Train". Both have Morrison written all over them, and in fact, he's using them on his upcoming outing. Like Morrison, Waits's, Wilson's, and Costello's songs are also instantly recognizable as theirs. Bob Dylan submits what is probably the most generic song on the album. Another highlight is the Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil/Brenda Russell written "None Of Us Are Free". The two aforementioned titles, as well as the rest of the album, are graced by a superlative organ player in Rudy Copeland. Copeland, who is blind, is the organist at the church where Burke pastors. The title cut is written by songwriting cohorts Dan Penn and Carson Whitsett, along with Hoy Lindsey. Penn wanted to write an Otis Redding type ballad and had wanted to use the title "Don't Give Up On Me". Whitsett sat down and started laying down Otis like chord changes and the result, in my opinion, is a song that sounds like a classic '60s country soul hit. Copeland's playful interplay with Burke is uniquely splendid. To say Burke sounds great would be an understatement. His voice is smooth and strong. The Joe Henry produced ensemble deliver a package that should be titled "Don't Give Up On Music."

The Real Deal
Somewhere in your music collection you most likely have a Soul compilation. In all probability you will find a song on it called 'Everybody Needs Somebody To Love' by Solomon Burke. Well surprise, unlike most of the people on that compilation Solomon Burke is not dead and he is still a working Soul Man, and while some may feel that there isn't a crowd pleaser like 'Everybody Needs Somebody To Love' on the CD(although 'None of Us Are Free' comes pretty close), the album is filled with great songs by some of the best songwriters of the past century, which showcase a singer who not only has an incredible range, but is as equally at home doing a song by Tom Waits as he is one by Brian Wilson. We live in a time when the word 'great' is overused to the point of meaninglessness and unfortunately this applies particularly to what is written and said about music, but Solomon Burke is unqualifiedly a 'great singer' and this is an excellent album that deserves to outsell anything that has been in the charts for quite some time. If you've ever listened to that Soul compilation of yours and thought: "They don't make music like this anymore," then you need to get this album because 'they' just did. This is not to say that this is an exercise in nostalgia because it is not. This is a sophisticated album that shows that Burke has matured and developed with the course of time, despite being out of the gaze of the mainstream music media and record buying public for so long. This is not a modern record because of it's production (it was recorded live in a studio in four days), but because of the richness and variety of the material Burke makes his own. The songs are bound together by the soul of a man who knows how to give everything to a song, and does. This is the real deal.

Good - except...
I'm coming at this record from a different angle to most people - I've never heard anything by Solomon Burke before, or listened to much soul music. But I'm a big fan of Tom Waits and Bob Dylan etc., so I thought I'd check it out.
And it's great. Really good. The songs are by and large top-notch, except for Van Morrison's contributions, which is a shame. Also, I found the much-vaunted organ contributions of organist Rudy Copeland annoying.
But that's the bad. The good? Fantastic voice, gorgeous, lush sound (it's a definite headphones record), and definitely worthwhile.