Search - Billy Eckstine :: Senior Soul

Nice to see it is still in print

Tnahpellee | Australia | 03/24/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This disc is comprised of Billy Eckstines last two albums for Stax/Enterprise. The two albums are 'Senior Soul' from 1972 and 'If she walked into my life' from 1974. It is an interesting slice of musical history, to see how an old ballad-singer from the 40's was getting to grips with the 70's.



First of all, take your hat off to Stax, because they released these obsucre albums on CD fairly early, 1995, (you'll die waiting for a CD copy of 'Moment' from 1971) considering they weren't going to make a huge profit out of the CD. They made the provision solely for those interested in Mr.B.



To the albums, 'Senior Soul' is a tongue-in-cheek title, perhaps commenting on the fact that younger record-buyers aren't interested in older artist (I thik the cover art is also a nice little joke about that). However, the music on 'Senior soul' is probably as contemporary as Billy was going to get. It's very much 70's gospel-soul with a faint hint of jazz and at times Billy shows he's not scared to 'rock out'. It's an interesting album. Many of the songs feature brass arrangements, but my favourite is the more stripped-down rocker 'Today was tomorrow yesterday', with it's country-like twang. The whole album is very much gospel, and it covers many styles of gospel, from slower tunes like 'When there's something wrong with my baby' and 'I'll always have faith in you' to more pop-gospel tracks like 'A man who sings' to more uptempo pieces which are found in plenty throughout the album. I think it is a high-quality album.



The other album, 'If she walked into my life' is a ballad album. Mr.B is in fine voice, and the songs are nice, but for me the highlights are the two openers. 'The taste of my tears' is almost a dizzying array of styles, from gospel, country, adult contemporary, neo-classical. 'Remembering' is a really haunting, wonderful piece featuring some inventive glockenspiel work. The other songs are generally old-fasioned ballad's, featuring big orchestra's and strong vocals. A newer remake of 'Mr. you've gone and got the blues' is included, along with a cover of 'Sophisticated lady'. The one song that differs slightly is 'If you could see me now', a 70's sounding adult-contemporary styled ballad with a country flavour. He hits some really high notes in it. I remember 'All in love is fair' as being a strong song.



Overall, a nice addition to your collection, considering we're lucky to have it. His voice here, even though he was about 60 when this was recorded, is fantastic.

"