It was
Lou Johnson
's unusual fate to be known, especially to fans of
Burt Bacharach
and
Hal David
, for recording versions of songs that became bigger hits for others. In a crueler irony, those original versions have been hard to come by even in the CD era, at least prior to the reissue of this superbly packaged and annotated compilation.
Incomparable Soul Vocalist
presents 25 tracks
Johnson
recorded for
Big Top
in the early to mid-'60s, including four previously unreleased tracks and a previously unissued extended alternate take of
"Unsatisfied."
The highlights are, as expected, the seven
Bacharach
-
David
compositions, including his versions of
"Reach Out for Me,"
"(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me,"
"The Last One to Be Loved,"
"Kentucky Bluebird (Send a Message to Martha),"
all of which are more famous as done by
Dionne Warwick
(who changed
"Message to Martha"
to
"Message to Michael"
). Also here is
's
"Magic Potion,"
covered by
the Searchers
, and
"If I Never Get to Love You,"
perhaps better known via interpretations by
Marianne Faithfull
,
Gene Pitney
Timi Yuro
. Judged with toughness,
's versions aren't as good as the more celebrated ones. But that doesn't mean they weren't good, as he was a fine suave soul-pop singer, though perhaps (like
) closer to sophisticated pop than soul. Much of the other material was written by the songwriting team of
Bill Giant
Bernie Baum
Florence Kaye
, and while it too has a smooth uptown pop-soul feel, it's simply not as memorable as
's output.
"Please Stop the Wedding"
is a very worthy wrenching downbeat ballad, though, and
"Park Avenue"
is neat in a kind of churning soul-pop-meets-Broadway fashion. The liner notes have a lengthy history of this cult soul favorite that doesn't just cover the
recordings, but examines his whole career, with plenty of quotes from
himself. ~ Richie Unterberger