Track Listing

1. Truth In Tears Intro
2. Jazz, My Rhythm & Blues
3. We R One
4. Midnight Mile
5. Truth In Tears 2
6. What About Me
7. Blues For Billie Holiday
8. Stripper
9. And I Love Her
10. Truth In Tears 3
11. Africa Now
12. Lookin' Out
13. Truth In Tears 4
14. Paris Blues
15. Faithful (O.B.'s Song)
16. Truth In Tears 5
17. Look In 2 U

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71106 in Music
• Released on: 2005-03-22
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Worth waiting for.
I pre-ordered the album back in july so the wait has seemed endless but wow has it been worth waiting for. Each track seems to hit the spot and the musicians produce a terrific sound. I am sure that with just a few more listenings this album will go into my top five off all time. Well done 'Terry' - you really are very very talented.

Simon, Bishops Stortford, Herts

Songs of cosmic compassion for a fallen world
I hope I grow old like Terry Callier: growing into richer wisdom and ripening like fine wine. On the other hand, if you're not already a Terry Callier fan, I doubt this loose-limbed, jazz-inflected set will convert you. Novices should proceed directly to 1973's What Color Is Love for his vintage stuff, or 2002's Speak Your Peace for his late period revival. With that under your belt, this album is clearly your next port of call.

In case you don't know, Callier straddles a strange folk-jazz-soul demi-monde, made distinctive by his huge charisma and emotional warmth: think Joni Mitchell if she actually liked people or early Pentangle if Ann Peebles replaced Jacqui McShee. Vocally, he owes a debt to Marvin Gaye but his expression is closer to Al Green's conundrum of loverman vs saint. All of these qualities are exercised (or exorcised?) to the full on this recording. The songs are punctuated by poetic meditations ("Truth in Tears") on the "heroes and she-roes" of this broken world, half-mumbled by Callier in weary but blissful benediction. Not many artists could pull it off, but Terry Callier makes you believe in him, his hapless characters and hope for a better future.

Musically, the songs lean towards the "jazz" pole of Callier's style, as the opening track announces. I was a little disappointed by this on first listening, since if I want syrupy soft-jazz I'll just go and buy another Diana Krall album, grow a goatee and a ponytail and start smoking clove cigarettes. I always felt it was the tension between Callier's jazz leanings and his springy, elastic folk stylings that kept his music so vital. The folk element is definitely downplayed here, but never mind because Callier introduces his surprise on "Midnight Mile"... his own take on jazz-rock. Yes, the effect is not unlike Steely Dan and, even though Callier's voice lacks the soaring power it once had (ever so slightly), the music is propulsive and exciting.

Callier dips in and out of this mode, revisiting his late-night jazz-bar ambience on "Blues For Billie Holiday" then shifting into world music territory for the rhythmic "Africa Now". But what links and unifies all these songs is Terry Callier's monumental tenderness, whether honouring the lost greats of black American music or reaching out to the quiet despair of an ageing stripper, and all the while offering the whole rag-taggle humanity up to the love of his God. Makes you want to testify, 'cause when Jesus comes again Terry Callier will surely be on His iPod.

A wonderfully mature set, then, from an artist who never really had an immature period. You won't dance to it or make love to it, but you'll sip your wine, find it in your heart to bless this wicked world and leave determined to live a better life. And frankly, there's room in my collection for music like that.