Home in Your Heart: the Best of Solomon Burke

 

 

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i bought this CD, and was most impressed by the standard of solomons music, he sings straight from the heart, and would recommemend it to those who love the deep southern soul sound as i do, as that is what you get from this CD, happy listening folks luv liz x

I had not heard of this artiste before buying this CD. It was only at his passing that I decided to listen to his music. I liked what I heard so decided to buy Home in Your Heart: The Best of Solomon Burk & I was not disappointed. It is one of thes best CD's I've ever bought. He has the most soulful, beautiful voice I have ever heard. If you like the Old School Soul music then this is a must.

A big thank you to Amazon for getting it spot on by stating, absolutely correctly that "Without question, Solomon Burke is the most unfairly overlooked singer of soul's golden age", and another big thank you to Joe Henry for producing "Don't Give up on me" in 2002, which brought Solomon back from the dead, and yet another thank you to Jools Holland for allowing us to see and hear the man on British television during the last few years of his life.

Way back in the early 60's there were two singers recording with Atlantic both of whom had been scuffling R&B artists with a basing in gospel music. One of them, Ray Charles went on to be a household name, honoured and feted by the American music establishment and referred to as a "genius". The other one, Solomon Burke was virtually a forgotten man a decade ago other than by a few old lags like myself. And yet he made some of the defining records of southern soul which went on to inspire a whole new generation of artists at Stax/Volt in Memphis.

Solomon was at Atlantic from 1960 to 1969. He had an R&B chart hit with "Just out of Reach" which crossed over to no. 24 on the US National chart in 1961. That was just about as high as he got in the National charts in spite of continued quality of releases. "Just out of Reach" itself was one of the earlier examples of a country song, sung and performed with gospel sincerity and full respect for the song, in an already mature southern soul style. And this was a year before the release of the "pioneering" "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music" from Ray Charles.

Following Atlantic Solomon went through a whole raft of labels but without meeting any real success until the Joe Henry produced "Don't Give up on me". But it wasn't because of bad music - most of what I've heard is pretty good even if not up to the level of the superb Atlantic material. Although many of these releases didn't get much promotion, I've picked up whatever I could, like the Bell album entitled "Proud Mary" with the following statement from John Fogerty on the back "The first time I heard Solomon Burke sing PROUD MARY I was plain amazed. 2000 miles away this man had crawled up inside my head to hear what PROUD MARY was about". I also have a gospel album called "I have a Dream" dedicated to Martin Luther King. And I have "Electronic Magnetism" on MGM which contains a song entitled "Three psalms of Elton". More recently I picked up the splendid "Soul Alive" from Rounder in 1984 (which I've reviewed elsewhere).

One day, hopefully someone will put together a "best of" which covers all of Solomon's years in the wilderness. But for now we have the excellent albums which have followed "Don't Give up on me" and we have the Atlantic material itself which, in my eyes, is still the best of the lot. For those who do remember Solomon, Disc 1 contains those near hits which, if you're lucky, you still have on played-to-the-death vinyl, numbers like "Down in the Valley", "Cry to Me", "If you need Me", "Everybody needs Somebody to love" (yes, the Blues Brothers one), and many, many more. There are plenty of examples of country soul - "I'm hanging up my heart for you", "Go on back to him" and loads more - there's a country spirit in many of these numbers alongside the churchy organ, the fruity saxes sometimes with those sharp jabs of punctuation, the Floyd Cramer-ish piano, and on top of it all, King Solomon himself, whispering, caressing, pleading, hanging up his heart, crying, and bringing it on home (to misquote that other great soul man, Sam Cooke).

Disc 2 covers the later period with lesser known tracks but there's no real drop in quality. Indeed there are new highlights to discover: another great country cover in "Detroit City", Ivory Joe Hunter's classic "Since I met you baby", and Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham's song for the Box tops "I met her in Church" modified for Solomon - "Don't hesitate, don't make me wait, meet me in church" - the thought of going to church has never sounded this fantastic before!

What you're reading about here is quite simply, THE motherlode of southern soul. You just have to get it. Five stars? This is more like five hundred stars!!!!!!! (and if you hadn't guessed I've been holding back from raving all the way through).

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5.0 out of 5 stars The Bishop Does it Again!
I have been a Solomon Burke fan for nigh on 40 years. There is nothing here that surprises me as I know the kind of music he does and I am quite happy with what I know. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Mrs. C. E. Alleyne

5.0 out of 5 stars Home in your heart: The best of Solomon Burke - Everybody needs someone to love and a Solomon Burke album
This superb set anthologises the early years of Solomon Burke's career recording soul classics for Atlantic. Read more

Published 8 months ago by Victor

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