He's the man

Solomon Burke defines soul

by Ted Drozdowski

Because it's Valentine's Day weekend, I'm going to tip you to something as essential to love American-style as silky chocolates, ruby roses, and candle-lit dinners: Solomon Burke. Not only is Burke the possessor of soul music's prettiest male voice, he's an expert in the art of love. Check his record. He's got 21 children. And among his hits from the '60s shine such romantic diamonds as "Just Out of Reach (Of My Two Empty Arms)," "Cry to Me," "Tonight's the Night," "The Price," and "If You Need Me." Send the latter, with its wholeheartedly devoted "If you need me/Call me" catch line, to the one you desire and I guarantee that if there's any chemistry at all he or she will tumble into your arms.

But you needn't dip all the way back into Burke's oldies to find a sad heart melter anymore. "Your Time To Cry" on his new The Definition of Soul (Pointblank/Virgin) should do the trick. It's Burke at his best, soaring and crooning with his slow-heated honey voice just the way he did in the '60s -- and just the way he still does in every one of his gripping concerts. Elsewhere on the CD you'll find him pleading, testifying, shouting -- soaring from a baritone to an angelic falsetto. His is a voice that's launched a million seductions, not counting his own, and that miraculously has improved in timbre and command as he's aged.

Which is why an unfavorable review of The Definition of Soul in a recent Rolling Stone, which incorrectly implied Burke no longer has the sweet-butter pipes to merit a "comeback album," was such a surprise. Despite his vitality as a live performer, it's been a long time since he's been on a label with the marketing clout of Virgin, and he's got a lot of hopes for the album's success. Nonetheless, he was in good humor about the critic's jibe when he called me from his office in Los Angeles.

"I think I'm going to have to set up my band right in Rolling Stone's lobby, on the front desk, to make sure they're listening. That should prove who's right. But you know, if we didn't have that negative review, then there wouldn't be anything to compare it to. The one bad thing is, that's the only review my banker read . . . so he called me up and cancelled my gold card. `Mr. Burke [here he affects a straitlaced white-guy accent], if that review was right, I think we're going to send you the regular card this year.' "

He also does a wicked impression of Little Richard's voice, recounting how the self-proclaimed "king and queen of rock and roll" arrived too late for his intended performance on Burke's recording of "Today Is Your Birthday." "He came through the doors with an entourage of about nine people flanking him like he was the president, and he said [slips into chirpy character], `My limousine got stuck in traffic. Shut up! I know I'm late; don't nobody move.'

"So he sat down behind the mixing console, and we were playing the tracks for `Everybody's Got a Game.' I showed him the lyrics, and he started to cry. `I lived that,' he said. `Gimme a microphone.' He sang one take without even getting out of his chair and said, `That's it! You got it! I'm gone.' "

Although some fans of Burke's classic genre studies may be alienated by the album's turns of arrangement, like the house mix behind "Sweet Spirit" or the lite-jazz backing of "Use Me But Leave My Mind Alone," the Bishop (as the 10,000 worldwide members of this former child prodigy preacher's House of God for All People gospel know him) explains there's a reason for all that diversity. "I meant the title of the album literally: the definition of soul. We wanted to do as many styles of soul as possible. It can be serious, it can be uptempo, it can be country or jazz or gospel. You can do anything as long as you put your heart into it; that's what makes it soulful. Putting your heart into something -- cooking or singing or making love -- with every bit of your spirit . . . that's the definition of soul."

For me, it's Burke's voice -- the same strong instrument that almost singlehandedly kept Atlantic Records afloat in the early '60s after its biggest star, Ray Charles, hit the road, jack, for ABC -- that defines soul cut-for-cut on the new album. Hearing him sing is always a deep pleasure.

Burke's deepest pleasure right now may simply be returning to the musicmaking game in major-label style. He's planning a tour that will last through September, his longest in at least a decade. And he's looking forward to working with new material. "I can't keep singing `Tonight's the Night' and `If You Need Me' and all those other old tunes forever. There's no reason to record them again [as he did on 1994's superb Live at the House of Blues on Black Top Records]. Atlantic has released them all at least 20 times with different titles -- one album, I think, for every hit we had."