Absooutely esssential Joe South
Kevin D. Rathert | Carbondale, IL | 05/22/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This, the third two on one of Joe South's Capitol recordings, released on the Australian reissue Raven label. Represented here are South's fifth and sixth and final albums on the Capitol label, originally released in 1971 and 1972. The first album features work by The Believers, South's backing band which included his brother, Tommy on drums, and Tommy's wife, Barbara, on keyboards. As per usual with South the song quality is wonderful, from the lament to lost dreams in the title track to the slide guitar driven "Revolution of Love." The album also includes cover versions, a rarity in South's catalog due to his songwriting skills. South said he performed the covers because they were songs he liked. Unfortunately, South's personal world was falling apart and before the recording of "A Look Inside" Tommy died of a drug overdose, and Joe had issues of his own. "A Look Inside" is the dark side of South showing itself from the onset of the guitar driven lament "Coming Down All Alone" and throughout the album. The songs are even darker than on the previous album. But this time around there are no covers, but a batch of South originals, The pain of South's personal life cries throughout. The song titles reflect the album's focus, such as "Imitation of Living," "It Hurts Me Too," "Misunderstanding," "Misfit" etc. This was to be South's last album before a self imposed 3 year hiatus from music. South cut a one-off album on Island Records in 1975. South's talent in the singer/songwriter/guitarist genre is truly on display here, despite the darkness of the tracks. The guitar work on "It Hurts Me Too" is worth the price of admission here. In fact the entire album is filled with South's guitar prowess. With South's 6 Capitol albums now all in print on Raven, and the career spanning "Anthology" released by Raven in 1999, it is doubtful any more South recordings are released in the near future. All of South's works are absolutely essential to any collector's collection. This collection also contains South's first new recording in 35 years, "Oprah Cried." Unfortunately the new song is a pretty straight forward country western ballad. But this disc is an absolute must, documenting the talented South's personal trip to and through (?) hell."