RIP Solomon Burke.

Very saddened this morning to hear of the death of music genius Solomon Burke. The man was a an icon of soul music and an incredible incredible performer. Its a great shame that during his career he only ever won one grammy, but that award was for a simply incredible album.

If you have never heard of Burke, I urge you to buy this album, or at least look up some of his stuff on Youtube.

http://www.play.com/Music/CD/4-/2289158/Don-t-Give-Up-On-Me/Product.html

Reaper wrote:

Very saddened this morning to hear of the death of music genius Solomon Burke. The man was a an icon of soul music and an incredible incredible performer. Its a great shame that during his career he only ever won one grammy, but that award was for a simply incredible album.

If you have never heard of Burke, I urge you to buy this album, or at least look up some of his stuff on Youtube.

http://www.play.com/Music/CD/4-/2289158/Don-t-Give-Up-On-Me/Product.html

I think I shall.

Y'know there's so much bad music these days that I've noticed if I give overlooked or under-appreciated things a chance, it can grow on me.

Like for instance, my father listens to a lot of Stevie Ray Vaughn and Lightning Hopkins. But I never actually stopped to listen to that, caring only about the things I cared about, but recently in the last few years, i've turned my attention to something I never would have cared about before, and I like it.

This sounds like just the kind of thing I should listen to, simply because I usually don't. And it will probably grow on me.

Ooh now I love me a bit of Stevie Ray. His cover of Voodoo Chile is simply genius, and there's very little wrong with a dose of Lightning Hopkins either. If you like both of those, give some of Howlin' Wolf's electric blues a try as well.

Burke just had an incredibly sweet and mellow voice which works perfectly for the records on that album. He's done a lot of incredible stuff over the years, but on that one CD I think he encapsulated the essence of his music brilliantly.

Its a bit like BB King with "Blues on the Bayou". I've got a stack of BB King CDs as he's possibly my favourite artist after Elvis Presley. I've even seen him live. But on that one CD, released in (I think) 1999, he stripped his music back to basics, recorded it in a short space of time in a small studio, and its just out of this world.