Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

The fifth instalment in the Covered With Soul series departs from the custom of the previous four which featured mostly covers of non-soul originals. This mix consists of soul covers of soul songs.

One would imagine that soul covers of soul songs would be more frequent than those of non-soul tracks in the genre’s repertoire of the late 1960s and ’70s, but I’ve found that this is not necessarily so, at least not as far as reasonably well-known tracks are concerned, and if one ignores the Motown custom of its roster all recording the same songs.

Two song titles included here will at first sight seem unfamiliar: The Rance Allen Group’s Just My Salvation reworks The Temptation’s Just My Imagination, giving it a gospel spin. Change Of Pace change their relationship with the soldiers in Vietnam from that in Freda Payne’s Bring The Boys Home. The buddies of the Change Of Pace title are depicted on the cover of the album, though the rest of the LP is standard soul fare, including a Christmas song I neglected to include on the soul Christmas mixes.

David Ruffin’s version of I Want You Back appeared on an album that was completed in 1971 but remained unreleased until 2004, because Motown saw no commercial promise in it. It’s a pity, because it’s a fine album. Don’t feel too sorry for the former Temptations man; he was not a great man – but what a singer!

One performer on this set also provides the original for a song covered here.  The wonderful Marlena Shaw covers Roberta Flack’s Feel Like Makin’ Love and provided the original for California Soul, covered here by Brenda & the Tabulations.

Mike James Kirkland is not very well known, though his song Hang On In There (from the same album as Baby I Need Your Loving) was covered last year by John Legend and The Roots. The marvellous Lyn Collins, former backing singer for James Brown, also deserves to be better known. She sang my favourite version of Don’t Make Me Over (featured here in a cover by the likewise superb Barbara Jean English), which featured on my Bacharach mix a couple of years ago.

Philly Soul singer Barbara Mason specialised in cheating songs, and with her cover of Billy Paul’s Me And Mrs Jones she takes on one of the greatest songs of that kind. Billy’s version is unclear whether the two people actually consummate their love; in her eight-minute version Mason ends up coming face-to-face with Mrs Jones (not the one Billy met with; the wife of her Mr Jones), and we learn that she and Mr Jones did have sex, including the intimate noises Mr Jones makes!

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R.

TRACKLISTING
1. David Ruffin – I Want You Back (1971)
2. Mike James Kirkland – Baby I Need Your Loving (1972)
3. Ronnie Dyson – Just Don’t Want To Be Lonely (1973)
4. Betty Wright – Ain’t No Sunshine (1972)
5. Dee Dee Sharp Gamble – Ooh Child (1977)
6. Lyn Collins – Never Gonna Give You Up (1972)
7. Rotary Connection – Respect (1969)
8. Change Of Pace – Bring My Buddies Back (1971)
9. The Rance Allen Group – Just My Salvation (1970)
10. Ernie Hines – A Change Is Gonna Come (1972)
11. Hank Ballard – Slip Away (1969)
12. The Delfonics – A Lover’s Concerto (1968)
13. Brenda & the Tabulations – California Soul (1970)
14. Marlena Shaw – Feel Like Makin’ Love (1975)
15. Sidney Joe Qualls – If You Don’t Know Me By Now (1974)
16. Barbara Mason – Me & Mr. Jones (1973)
17. Maxine Nightingale – Reasons (1975)
18. The Soul Children – Signed, Sealed, Delivered (1978)
19. Zulema - Wanna Be Where You Are (1972)
20. Barbara Jean English – Don’t Make Me Over (1972)
21. Jean Wells – I’ll Drown In My Own Tears (1968)
22. Blossoms – Grandma’s Hands (1972)

DOWNLOAD

…

More Covered With Soul
More Mix-CDs

The first mix of soul covers was very popular (and great fun to compile), so I hope that subsequent compilations will also find an audience.I think I have at least two more in the works.

There are a few surprising covers in this mix. Maxayn reshape the Rolling Stones song entirely, while the wonderful Zulema Cusseaux, a gifted songwriter in her own right, perhaps even tops my favourite solo McCartney track. And could there be soul versions of Wild Thing? Jagger’s ex-squeeze Marsha Hunt gave it a shot.
Scanning the tracklisting, there are some wonderful strong women who have been much neglected among the 20 featured acts. We previously encountered the unjustly forgotten Barbara Jean English with the utterly astonishing So Many Ways To Die on Any Major Soul 1972-73; here she improves on one of Bread’s better songs. Tami Lynn never had much of a big audience; her cover of Smiley Lewis’ One Night Of Sin (featured here as the original of Elvis’ One Night) shows why that was a great shame. Unlike those two, Denise LaSalle has had a notable career, even if she is often remembered for the horrible 1985 novelty hit My Toot-Toot. Here LaSalle is allowed to break a rule: being featured with a song already covered on the first mix.

The idea with these compilation is to take songs that are better known in versions outside the soul genre, but there must be exceptions. The test is in how much the covering artist appropriates the song. The amazing Marlena Shaw does that with the Main Ingredient’s Don’t Want To Be Lonely, and The Temptations give I Heard It Through The Grapevine their spin (like the two better-known versions by Gladys Knight and Marvin Gaye, it was produced by Norman Whitfield).

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R , and a front and back cover is included. Several of the songs included here are, to my knowledge, out of print. Be sure to buy the albums that include the songs that you like in particular — if you like the album fillers, you’ll surely like the rest of the album.

TRACKLISTING
1. Al Green – I Want To Hold Your Hand (1969)
2. Maxayn – You Can’t Always Get What You Want (1972)
3. Zulema – Maybe I’m Amazed (1972)
4. Donnie Hathaway - He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother (1971)
5. The Smith Connection – Rainy Days And Mondays (1972)
6. Isaac Hayes – I’ll Never Fall In Love Again (1971)
7. Candi Staton – In The Ghetto (1972)
8. Thelma Houston – Don’t Make Me Over (1981)
9. Marlena Shaw – Just Don’t Want To Be Lonely (1973)
10. Barbara Jean English – Baby I’m A-Want You (1972)
11. Solomon Burke – He’ll Have To Go (1964)
12. Denise LaSalle – Harper Valley P.T.A. (1973)
13. Tami Lynn – One Night Of Sin (1972)
14. The Temptations – I Heard It Through The Grapevine (1969)
15. The Intruders - Mother And Child Reunion (1973)
16. Family Brown – When I Need You (1977)
17. Billy Paul – Your Song (1972)
18. Joe Simon – Help Me Make It Through The Night (1973)
19. The Dells – A Whiter Shade Of Pale (1969)
20. Marsha Hunt – Wild Thing (1971)

DOWNLOAD

.

More Mixes