"...Land Of Heartache..."
One of the biggest disappointments of my 62-year musical journey - twenty of those years spent in a busy West End Record Shop listening to music all day every day where Soul was a mainstay 50% of the time - was playing Sam Cooke LPs on RCA Victor – and there are at least seven or eight of them.
Most people know his greatest hits that cherry pick his better singles, but not the albums that were often full of truly cheesy material picked for him and not at all in keeping with his Soul Man image ("Night Beat" was an exception where he got to control the content). They were aiming for a wide market.
Like Kenny Carter, Cooke was on RCA Victor who in my mind had no real idea of what Soul Music was. They simply picked old crooner tunes and standards (Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra) - larruped on the strings and background girly vocals - amped up the melodrama to over-the-top Phil Spector levels - and hoped for the chart-best. Instead of actually feeling Soulful or even moving, they almost always felt old and overwrought - old white men trying to be hip – forcing their clichéd choices on superlative black artists (Aretha Franklin at Columbia felt the same until she went to Atlantic Records and the sparks really started to fly). And unfortunately (at least for me) that's what you mostly get here.
Kenny Carter had a fabulous and expressive deep voice - very similar to say Roy Hamilton or Tommy Hunt or Jerry Butler - and the nine Stereo cuts on here (the other 13 are Mono) professionally recorded in RCA's studios sound sonically stunning.
UK released 25 September 2020 - "Showdown: The Complete 1966 RCA Recordings" by KENNY CARTER on Ace/Kent Soul CDKEND 491 (Barcode 029667099622, 67:00 minutes) absolutely rocks soundwise. This is a gorgeous-sounding CD compilation. Unfortunately the syrupy material that is being peddled as 'sophisticated' comes over time-and-time again like strangulated Little Anthony & The Imperials, but without the tunes.
All cuts are from 1965 and 1966 sessions. Six of the 22 cuts have been issued on various Kent/Soul CD compilations between 2007 and 2020 (Tracks 2, 11, 12, 17, 19 and 21), whilst Tracks 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 18, 20 and 22 are PREVIOUSLY UNISSUED. The remaining six are A&B-sides of three RCA Victor US 45s (Tracks 3, 7, 8, 14, 15 and 16).
ADY CROASDELL has done the beautifully laid out and hugely affectionate liner notes in the jam-packed 28-page booklet - tape boxes - musician charts - Billboard and Cashbox adverts for his debut 45 "Body And Soul" b/w "I've Got To Find Her" on RCA Victor 47-8791 from April 1966 - demo labels for "Showdown" b/w "I've Got To Get Myself Together" on RCA Victor 47-8841 from May 1966 and so on. NICK ROBBINS has done the Remasters and they are stupendous.
But for me, despite the talk of legendary this and never released that - I can all too often hear why the LP never came together. Any single on real Soul labels like Stax, Motown, Atlantic or even Chess and Checker would knock spots of this well produced but ultimately overwrought mid 60ts angst. My wife told me to turn this off as it was giving her a headache – oh dear.
Those who love this sort of polished string-laden heartbreak and misery on a Soulful tip should not hesitate, but I'd suggest to all others - best grab a listen first before purchase...
