Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

It has been more than two years since the last Covered With Soul. This collection draws from a wide range of genres to produce what I think is a pretty smooth flow of good soul music.

Those genres include rock (Come Together), 1960s pop (Windy, You”ve Lost That Loving Feeling, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do) and “70s pop (Spirit In The Sky, Your Song, Mr Bojangles), folk (Fire And Rain, Where Have All The Flowers Gone, Tin Man), country (For The Good Times, Break It To Me Gently, Misty Blue), and standards (Unforgettable, The Glory Of Love, It”s All In The Game, Fever, even I”ll Build A Stairway To Paradise from the MGM musical An American In Paris) .

And there is a soul version of the Irish song Danny Boy which strips that old chestnut of its accumulated kitsch and gives it a soul treatment which sounds a decade older than its year of release, 1981. It is performed by LV Johnson, who had more success as a songwriter than he did as a recording artist, alas. He died in 1994 at the age of 48.

One country track here may be more famous as a soul number, but not in the featured version. Misty Blue was written for Brenda Lee but became better known in Eddie Arnold”s version. Its biggest success, however, was in the southern soul version by Dorothy Moore, which hit the Top 5s in both the US and UK “” three years after it was first recorded. The present version by Joe Simon from 1969 is the missing link. Coincidentally, it was also a minor hit three years after it was first recorded.

As always, CD-R length, home-covered covers, PW in comments.

1. Dorothy Morrison – Spirit In The Sky (1970)
2. Earth Wind & Fire – Where Have All The Flowers Gone (1972)
3. Clydene Jackson – Mr Bojangles (1975)
4. Maxine Weldon – I’ll Build A Stairway To Paradise (1975)
5. The Manhattans – Fever (1974)
6. Brothers Johnson – Come Together (1976)
7. Bobby Womack – Fire And Rain (1971)
8. Isaac Hayes – For The Good Times (1971)
9. Joe Simon – Misty Blue (1969)
10. Al Jarreau – Your Song (1976)
11. Chocolate Milk – Tin Man (1975)
12. Aretha Franklin – Break It To Me Gently (1977)
13. L.V. Johnson – Danny Boy (1981)
14. Eddie Holman – It’s All In The Game (1970)
15. The Dells – The Glory Of Love (1969)
16. Gene Chandler – Unforgettable (1970)
17. Carl Graves – Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (1975)
18. Billy Paul – Windy (1970)
19. Vivian Reed – God Bless The Child (1976)
20. Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway – You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling (1972)

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