Soul Survivors

...But it was not Burke's friends from the '60s who brought him back...

...Rev...

...Several of the new recordings are worth recommending, while all of them are worth celebrating for the corrective lessons they offer to today's pop...

...The contributions of rock 'n' roll artists of the boutiquey/singer-song-writer variety (Tom Waits, Joe Henry, Aimee Mann) to the return of soul music have been significant and surprising...

...The star of I Believe to My Soul, to the extent that this compilation has one, is Mavis Staples, whose voice could hardly be more rich and supple...

...Jerry Wexler, who, as vice president of Atlantic Records, cultivated most of the great Soul singers of the 1950s and '60s, once called Burke "the best soul singer of all time...

...It might be interesting to hear Al Green produced in the stripped-down manner that has been serving older singers from Neil Diamond to Solomon Burke to the late Johnny Cash so well in recent years, but going "indy" might also seem a bit phony in his case...

...The songwriting with his old Hi Records collaborator Willie Mitchell is very strong, especially on "Build Me Up," but the upbeat mood and lyrics begin to ring with too much cheer...

...Peebles always represented the tempered side of soul singing, underselling itself just slightly to yank you in...

...Who knows, if he plays his cards right, maybe this Stephens character will become more prominent on future John Legend recordings...

...The CD successfully returned listeners to a music rooted in the Pentecostal and gospel traditions, where soul is no mere adjective but something to be lost or saved...

...In the songwriting credits, Legend is listed as plain old John Stephens...

...She changes the words to reflect where she searched for joy—Detroit, Muscle Shoals, New York—only to come away with an unjustly obscure recording career...

...There is altogether less longing in his music, less of that near-physical need for love that made him once the most romantic of soul singers...

...A beautifully crafted song, it is also especially soulful...

...Instead he sounds exuberant, joyful—alas, contented...

...When James Brown took to strutting with a crown and furlined cape, it was Burke's throne he believed he'd usurped...

...Staples's rendition of Leadbelly's "You Must Have That True Religion" is, by itself, a great argument for all that today's pop has to learn from soul—musically, themati-cally, and spiritually...

...For years, Burke lacked the name recognition of, say, Otis Redding or Isaac Hayes, but he once represented the gold standard for soul singers...

...The low-fi types have more to learn from Al Green than he from them...

...Indeed, one trait of soul music that has never gone out of style is its preoccupation with the flesh...

...They were Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Van Morrison—in short, a bunch of guys more likely to form a Leonard Cohen Fan Club...

...Solomon Burke and Al Green would be the headliners in this distinguished group, but one cannot overlook new and fine work from such heavenly talents as Bettye Lavette, the legendary Mavis Staples, and sometime chart-toppers Irma Thomas and Ann Peebles...

...It would thrill the judges on American Idol (in fact, she got her start by winning a radio talent contest...

...Then you start flipping through Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music, and in the back of your mind, you're thinking about mentioning the Best of Stax collection to your wife, because it would make a really nice birthday gift...

...Soul's influence can be seen among many younger artists, including two establishment figures whose latest albums were showered with Grammy nominations: "Unplugged" by Alicia Keys and "Get Lifted" by John Legend...

...After a few hit singles in the '60s, she finished an album for Atlantic that failed to see the light of day until a few years ago when a French collector bought the masters and released it on his own...

...Legend, who appears to have bought his clothes at a Marvin Gaye outlet store, claims his stage name was a nickname given to him by his old-school musician friends...

...Rob, the record-store geek, freaks out when his girlfriend can't remember the name of that guy, you know, the one whose song he once played for her...

...And Don't Give Up On Me leads one to check out Rhino's revisionist collection of Solomon Burke hits...

...She recently replaced Sarah Jessica Parker as the celebrity salesgirl for GAP and has even made an appearance on Oprah...

...Yet the album proved a marvel of collaboration built on superb songwrit-ing and uncommonly powerful singing...

...Beware, however, of Stone's second album, Mind, Body, and Soul, on which, despite a couple of good tracks, this young lady acts more her age and offers a case study of what's wrong with today's pop music: pre-programmed jingles, instantly trite lyric-writing, a misplaced emphasis on the star instead of the music...

...If the kids on "American Idol" treat every note as an invitation to show their chops, then the delicate flowers of the arty, independent labels tend to the opposite...

...But as with Mann's music, when LaVette sings Apple's sullen, grievance-nursing diatribe, no one's going to doubt that LaVette's "own hell to raise" really is LaVette's, and hers alone...

...It is the first in a series...

...Despite some heavy signature recordings like "Time Is On My Side" (a worthy alternative to the Rolling Stones's more famous version), Thomas's early '70s recordings seem a little too frisky by today's standards...

...Also, the 60-year-old Green's voice has lost some of the oily muscle in its middle range that allowed him to float between ecstatic and awestruck...

...Doing so would reverse the rightful flow of influence, well illustrated by the decision of Cat Power, a critically acclaimed alternative singer, to go to Memphis and hire several old Hi Records players to perform on her new album...

...and yet the music still doesn't sound as if humans were involved...

...The smiles turn indistinguishable as the shimmery sound of a half-dozen violins and an impossibly bright horn section provide fewer accent notes and ever more celebratory flourish...

...For those who find today's pop music vulgar, cynical, and even sometimes un-musical, there could hardly be better news...

...It's about the extremes of suffering and happiness, even as it takes its bearings from the humble dramas of everyday life and the high-stakes challenge of deserving God's love...

...What remains great is the fullness and the verve of the sound...

...Their main vice is a shrinkage of sound to the point of muttering...

...Full of joy and hurt, but never therapeutic, today's soul music is no chicken soup for the soul...

...Solomon Burke is responsible for our entire relationship...

...Solomon Burke's return to the music scene may have begun with Nick Hornby's hugely popular novel High Fidelity (1995...

...Not a has-been, Lavette's a never-was...

...Sadly, both are undermined by the auto-hagiographic tendency that, since the rise of rap, runs especially deep in black music and makes the performer's own stardom the running subtext to every computer-generated note and melody...

...Souvenirs was hailed a masterpiece, especially in Europe where LaVette, like many soul greats, enjoys an avid following...

...LaVette borrows the title of the album from the lyrics of her tenth track, a recording of Fiona Apple's "Sleep to Dream...

...Simon and Laura Lee in the '60s...

...But the best track on Legend's album, Ordinary People, returns the singer to earth, accompanied by his own understated piano playing, in a tribute to the difficulties of love between mortals...

...That these hoarse whisperers may have discovered an affinity for the beautifully calibrated beltings of soul is cause for celebration...

...Possibly he owes more of his current good fortune to his creepy "presenter," Kanye West, with whom he's cowritten several flashy tracks, all of them of the you-so-fine-I'm-so-fine-you-know-you-want-to-get-with-me school...

...The trick still works...

...Especially for fans who missed the heyday of soul (born too late, in my case), albums like I Believe to My Soul make you wonder what's on, say, Ann Peebles's The Hi Record Years—How could I have ever swayed to Paul Young's version of "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down"?—or, to mention another featured artist, The Best of Billy Preston...

...Another revelatory new soul album is gospel-flavored I Believe to My Soul, also produced by Joe Henry...

...Take the wonderful Irma Thomas...

...But on this compilation her soul shows dark and mysterious, while the years have left her still vibrant voice with just the right amount of sand and vinegar...

...Solomon Burke...

...He sounds great, but the tone is different...

...Unfortunately, this album also shows her to be almost as vainglorious as the set-chewing wannabes awaiting Paula Abdul's approval...

...This high-quality shtick—it seems, sadly, to have not been entirely sincere—made Stone famous...

...Much the same can said of Burke's more recent album, Make Do With What You Got...

...he replies...

...In which case, this young artist might help ensure that the return of soul music is more than a limited reissue of the good old days...

...The quality of the instrumentation and its prominence on the recording are a testament to LaVette's voice, which does not need the set cleared for its star power to come across...

...A tall English girl of golden voice and blonde, feathery tresses, Stone was born in 1987 and is said to have been raised on a strict diet of Aretha Franklin and old R&B...

...Ann Peebles, perhaps best known for the balletically restrained "I Can't Stand the Rain," a big hit in 1973, also returns with more hiss in her voice, and she puts it to fine use on the bitter-weet "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You...

...Got to Get You Off My Mind.' That's our song...

...Where Mann sings with tightly wound archness and half-concealed contempt, LaVette takes you for a high-speed chase with stereo blasting, her big voice full of big demands and vindictive power...

...For them, song-writing is everything and sincerity is never a problem...

...Reviewed a little too casually in some quarters for its faint marketing resemblance to various revivalist-spirited compilations (Buena Vista Social Club, O Brother Where Art Thou), I Believe to My Soul is something else altogether, a group show in which five carefully selected, older soul artists all record new material...

...The most curious thing about LaVette's album is her choice of material, including a growling rendition of Aimee Mann's "How Am I Different...

...The age of the artists does much to affect the album's sound...

...LaVette tells her own story in a version of Lucinda Williams's "Joy," which, if possible, she sings with even more ironic scorn than Williams...

...In fact, not a single one of the songwriters who midwifed Don't Give Up On Me possessed authentic soul credentials...

...This was followed up by two new albums, both well received, the Dennis Walker-produced and cowritten A Woman Like Me (2003) and last year's I've Got My Own Hell to Raise, produced by Joe Henry, a key figure in the return of soul music...

...The title of Keys's new album would make one think it was recorded without digital enhancement...

...Staples calls on the sweetest of tones here but, like Peebles and Thomas, she works with the benefit of experience, as her bright notes seem deserved and the dark ones wise...

...Stone's voice is full of perfect round notes that could go on for days...

...A few rising stars, Joss Stone especially, have been wearing their soul on their sleeves, but even more interesting, several classic soul artists have recorded superb new albums...

...With her first album, Soul Sessions (2003), Joss Stone reminded many people of the popular potential of classic soul...

...Possibly the most intriguing example of today's soul is Bettye LaVette...

...Al Green's more recent album (he's had two in the last few years), Everything's Okay, shows he retains the divine spark more than 20 years after leaving pop music to devote himself to God and gospel music...

...What Henry has produced for LaVette is a gorgeous, rough-edged recording of superb and superbly balanced musicianship in which a few instruments all play prominent roles to form the perfect setting for LaVette's beautiful, hair-raising rage...

...After winning heavy play on alternative stations, Soul Sessions sold over two million copies, baffling connoisseurs with its evocative renditions of forgotten gems like "The Chokin' Kind" and "Dirty Man," big hits, respectively, for Joe David Skinner is an assistant managing editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...

...Nor does it sound as if songwriters were involved, even as credit is shared among whole committees of musicians, producers, fixers, and Keys herself, who went 0 for 5 on Grammy night, losing in the Best R&B Album category to none other than John Legend, who fared better, also winning Best New Artist and Best Male R&B vocal performance...