SOLOMON BURKE - Like A Fire

I won't bore you with an elegy on who Solomon Burke was, imposing in stature and even more so in importance within the world of music, the last great soul interpreter, or rather of that rock&soul he crowned himself king of, the first alongside Ray Charles to venture into blending the music of the soul with white folks' country, an artist every music lover should know.

And if that's not the case, go get yourself one of the compilations devoted to him ("Home In Your Heart" being the most recommendable) to fill that serious gap.

The Bishop has, in recent times, enjoyed a second youth along the lines of Johnny Cash, perhaps not comparable in terms of critical and public acclaim to that of the Man in Black, but certainly remarkable.

First he astonished with that "Don't Give Up On Me", which won praise everywhere (Mojo's album of the year for 2002), on which the titanic singer, with songs written by Tom Waits, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Brian Wilson and Joe Henry, gave many a stern lesson in what it really means to sing with feeling and deliver real emotion (just take two songs at random, "Flesh & Blood" and "None Of Us Are Free", to understand), much as the late Cash did with his American Recordings; then with that "Nashville", which confirmed how the boundaries between very different genres are merely screens that a true artist knows how to tear down.

This latest album of his differs from those previous ones on one fundamental point: the choice of collaborators; while on "Don't Give Up On Me" the Bishop's voice had skillful arrangements to showcase it, on this "Like A Fire" the likes of Eric Clapton, Keb Mo' and Ben Harper fail to give Burke songs worthy of his charisma as a performer.

What the songwriters (producer Steve Jordan first and foremost) hand Burke are limp, banal numbers that even King Solomon's powerful pipes and interpretive skill can barely lift off the ground.

But let it not be said, because Burke makes this record something remarkable in spite of everything: he turns "The Fall" into a perfect soul-country fusion, lends power to the flimsy framework Harper weaves on "A Minute To Rest And A Second To Prey", fills the Stones-ish r&b of "Ain't That Something" with soul, and takes the thin sketches of "What Makes Me Think I Was Right" and "Understanding" and transforms them, elevating them as if sculpting them out of mud.

He even manages to save old slowhand's face, breathing vital life into the soft "Thank You", while unfortunately nothing could be done for the title track.

An album that affirms Solomon Burke's worth in a roundabout way, for one simple reason: in anyone else's hands "Like a Fire" would probably have been a sorry mess, but the Bishop, from atop his throne, turned it into a country-rock'n'soul record capable of holding its own against plenty of what's out there.

Honor to King Solomon, then, hoping that next time he surrounds himself with better friends.

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29/06/2008