Friday, April 8, 2011

Old Stuff Friday - The Soul Corner - Solomon Burke

The death of the legendary soul singer Solomon Burke last year was a sad event for me. Though I was familiar with a couple of his songs from the early 1960s, notably "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love," covered by the Rolling Stones among others, I dove far deeper into the music of "The Bishop" fairly recently through the terrific "comeback" records he made with 2 of my favorite artists, Joe Henry and Buddy Miller. I would especially recommend "Don't Give Up on Me, " a near perfect CD.

In a famous quote, Jerry Wexler was once asked who was the best soul singer he ever heard, Aretha with the Muscle Shoals band, Otis Redding with Booker T's band, etc., and Wexler answered, "Solomon Burke with a pickup band."

So here's a recent performance of the title track from the Joe Henry record:



And while we generally just include one song each week on the Soul Corner, the Bishop was so much bigger than life, he gets two. Here's one of his early hits, "Cry to Me":



Joe Henry wrote a beautiful piece when Solomon Burke died:

http://www.joehenrylovesyoumadly.com/joseph-lee-henry/#burke

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