44. Solomon Burke - Rock 'n' Soul (1964)

1. Good Bye Baby (Baby Good Bye)*

2. Cry to Me*

3. Won't You Give Him (One More Chance)

4. If You Need Me

5. Hard, Ain't It Hard

6. Can't Nobody Love You

7. Just Out of Reach

8. You're Good for Me*

9. You Can't Love Them All

10. Someone to Love Me

11. Beautiful Brown Eyes

12. He'll Have to Go

B

So Solomon Burke was the first official "soul" artist, singing the sort of music that people in this day and age think of as classic 60s soul. That's a pretty big deal. What isn't a pretty big deal is this album.

I mean, yes this album contains a load of very successful singles. But when did success ever equate to quality? David Lee Roth had a big hit with a godawful version of "California Girls". The problem is that while Burke has one of the all time great voices, his material just doesn't live up to it.

Which isn't to say that this is a bad album. All the songs are good, to varying degrees, and it's a nice enough listen. There just isn't that extra level of oomph to elevate this above "pretty good for its time" soul music.

There are exceptions, of course. The first two tracks are dynamite. "Good Bye Baby" features a truly extraordinary degree of range in the singer, as he's forced to play the wounded lover gearing up for one last triste. And "Cry to Me" is a song so great there are no words to describe it. I mean, what even is it? A bizarre hodgepodge of every hip music style present at the time, it's gorgeous, rhythmic music paired to a truly great lyric delivered by a truly great singer. Burke was a preacher from being a child, and he really sells the idea of turning to music for solace when everything has gone terribly wrong. And this is ten years before "Rock n Roll Suicide". 

So anyway, this is a good album but not a particularly memorable one for me at least. If there had been more sturm und drang gospel like "Good Bye Baby" or rhythmic weirdness like "Cry to Me" I might have liked it more. The problem is that lack of decent tunes. Everything about this album is polished and perfect but there really aren't many memorable tunes. I've listened to it three times and there's not much I remember. Which is annoying as Burke is a truly great singer and he obviously had a good production team behind him. This is the problem with pop albums in general, though - a couple of good songs and a bunch of filler.