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Today's artist never had a big crossover hit, "the King of Rock and Soul" is not as widely known as others from the golden age of soul music. But his dramatic, sonorous voice — seasoned by his days as a boy preacher — is unrivaled in its ability to move effortlessly between R&B, pop, country and gospel. "My grandmother made sure that we listened to a variety of music, and that always stayed with me,". Recently, he's picked up a Grammy and long-overdue recognition, and tracks such as "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" are now part of the soul canon. "He is Solomon the Resonator," Tom Waits has said, "the golden voice of heart, wisdom, soul and experience."  . ..... N'joy

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He was proclaimed the “King of Rock and Soul” in 1964 and has also been anointed “the Bishop of Soul.” No less an authority than Jerry Wexler, the legendary Atlantic Records producer, has proclaimed, “The best soul singer of all time is Solomon Burke.”

Burke’s versatile, force-of-nature voice combines gospel fervor, country gentility and R&B grit. He can swing from a satiny croon to gruff soul shout to a deep, caressing baritone. From 1961 to 1968, Burke released 32 memorable singles on Atlantic. These included six Top 10 R&B hits, four of which crossed over to the pop Top 40: “Cry to Me” (Number Five R&B), “Just Out of Reach (Of My Two Open Arms)” (Number Seven R&B, Number 24 pop), “Got to Get You Off of My Mind” (Number One R&B, Number 22 pop), “You’re Good for Me” (Number Eight R&B), “Tonight’s the Night” (Number Two R&B, Number 28 pop) and “If You Need Me” (Number Two R&B, Number 37 pop).

Many more of Burke’s singles cracked both the R&B Top 40 and the Top Pop 100 charts. Yet his lasting significance as a recording artist and performer goes beyond numbers. Burke was a consummate showman who adopted the role of “King of Rock ‘n’ Soul” onstage by adorning himself in a regal robe of velvet and ermine. One of the greatest vocalists of the soul era, Burke has been credited for helping to keep Atlantic Records solvent from 1961 to 1964 with his steady run of hit records. Jerry Wexler pronounced Burke a “vocalist of rare prowess and remarkable range. His voice is an instrument of exquisite sensitivity.” He is also a colorful and even eccentric figure - one of the true characters in the world of popular music.

Burke was born in Philadelphia and gravitated to the church through the influence of his grandmother, preaching his first sermon at age seven. He was broadly exposed to music, absorbing the varied likes of jazz-pop vocalist Nat King Cole, cowboy singers Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, bluesmen Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, gospel queen Clara Ward, and R&B kingpins Ray Charles and Big Joe Turner. This accounts for Burke’s stylistic breadth as a soul singer. He recorded for the New York-based Apollo Records from 1955-1958, where he scored a minor hit with “You Can Run (But You Can’t Hide),” a song whose authorship was co-credited to Burke and boxer Joe Louis

In 1960, Burke signed to Atlantic Records, where it was believed that his flexible voice and roots in gospel and country would earn him a wide, bi-racial audience. His first hit for the label was the uptempo “Just Out Of Reach (Of My Two Open Arms)” in the fall of 1961. Burke’s first single to cross over from R&B to pop was a soulful cover of the country song “Just Out of Reach (Of My Two Open Arms).” Burke wrote or cowrote much of his material, and he also recorded songs by soul singers Wilson Pickett (“If You Need Me’) and Don Covay (“You’re Good for Me”). Burke and Covay cowrote one of his biggest hits, “Tonight’s the Night.” Burke’s signature song, “Got to Get You Off of My Mind,” stands as one of the premier soul hits of the Sixties. “Got to Get You Off of My Mind” and “Tonight’s the Night” appeared in 1965, Burke’s biggest year, and hit Number One and Number Two on the R&B charts, respectively.

In 1968, Burke teamed with fellow Atlantic artists Don Covay, Ben E. King, Arthur Conley and Joe Tex to record a single ("Soul Meeting") as the Soul Clan, an expression of solidarity and mutual support by five pillars of soul music. “We wanted to interlock ourselves as a group, to express to the younger people how strong we should be and to help one another, work with one another and support one another,” Burke has said of the Soul Clan’s lone single.

After leaving Atlantic, Burke signed with Bell Records where he released five singles in the next eighteen months. In 1969 he had a small hit with his second release for Bell, a reworking of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary" b/w "What Am I Living For" (Bell 783). This was co-produced by Tamiko Jones, who was being rehabilitated after a bout of polio, and was at the time Burke's manager. Burke recorded a cover of "Proud Mary" prior to Ike & Tina Turner's version, and according to Burke was the one who convinced the duo to record it. The song became a brief hit reaching #15 R&B and #45 pop. All but four of the tracks Burke recorded during an 18-month stay with Bell Records were packaged on the Proud Mary LP. After this album and the two following singles - his own "Generation of Revelations", and the Mac Davis song "In the Ghetto", which had previously been a hit for Elvis Presley - failed to chart, his contract was not renewed.

Through the efforts of his manager, Buddy Glee, by November 1970 Burke signed with Mike Curb's MGM label, and formed MBM Productions, his own production company. Burke's record debut for MGM, "Lookin' Out My Back Door", another Creedence Clearwater Revival song, had disappointing sales. His first MGM album, Electronic Magnetism, also failed to chart. In 1972 Burke had a #13 R&B hit for MGM with "Love Street and Fool's Road" (MGM 14353).[13] In 1972, he recorded the soundtrack to two films, Cool Breeze and Hammer. He left MGM for ABC-Dunhill Records in 1974, recording the album, I Have a Dream, which produced the #14 R&B hit, "Midnight and You". By 1975 Burke was signed to Chess Records. He recorded two albums for Chess: Music to Make Love By and Back to My Roots, and had a top 20 R&B hit in 1975 with "You And Your Baby Blues". However, his follow-up single "Let Me Wrap My Arms Around You" only reached #72 on the R&B chart. In 1978 Burke released an album Please Don't Say Goodbye To Me, which was produced by Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams, though Amherst Records.[78] On September 23, 1978, Burke charted for the 31st and last time when "Please Don't Say Goodbye to Me" reached #91 on the R&B chart. He released the album Sidewalks, Fences and Walls on Infinity Records in 1979 (reissued as Let Your Love Flow in 1993 by Shanachie Records).

Between 1979 and 1984, Burke recorded four gospel albums for Savoy Records, starting with the album, Lord I Need a Miracle Right Now. He was nominated for his first Grammy in the Best Male Gospel Soul category for his rendition of "Precious Lord, Take My Hand", but complained later that he did not receive royalties from his Savoy work. He then recorded for smaller labels such as Rounder, MCI/Isis, Bizarre/Straight, Black Top, Point Blank and GTR Records. Burke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 19, 2001 in New York City by Mary J. Blige, after eight previous nominations since 1986.

In 2002, Burke signed with Fat Possum Records and released the album, Don't Give Up on Me. The album became critically acclaimed and later resulted in Burke's first Grammy Award win. Burke later signed with Shout! Factory to release the album, Make Do With What You Got, which became another critically acclaimed success. In 2006, Burke returned to his country roots with the album, Nashville. In 2008, he received another Grammy nomination for the album, Like a Fire. That same year, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Burke as #89 on its list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". In 2010, Burke came out with the Willie Mitchell-produced Nothing's Impossible for E1 Entertainment. Later in 2010, he released his final album, Hold on Tight, a collaboration album with De Dijk, a Dutch band.


A lifelong entrepreneur, Burke also owned a string of mortuaries and attended to a lifelong ministry from his home in Beverly Hills, California, up until his death in Amsterdam in 2010. Burke was married four times. In total Burke fathered at least 14 children (9 daughters and 5 sons), including at least two fathered outside any of his marriages. He had 7 step children, 90 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren at the time of his death
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In 1969, Solomon Burke's long association with Atlantic Records had come to an end, and he hadn't had a major hit in several years when he strolled into the Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, AL to cut his first and only album for Bell Records. Proud Mary's lead-off cut was a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's titular hit tune (still in the charts when Burke recorded it), and while that may have seemed like a bald-faced bid for pop radio play, in Burke's hands the song became a bracing tale of life in the Deep South as African-Americans searched for liberation aboard the ship that carried them as slaves and put them to undignified labor serving wealthy whites. It was a bold conceit and Burke brought it to rich life, and while the rest of the album is hardly as surprising, it's as satisfying as anything he cut during the later part of his Atlantic tenure. The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section are in typically fine form here, accompanying Burke with rich, soulful passion while always serving the song and the artist ahead of displaying their own chops (keep an ear peeled for the potent groove of Roger Hawkins' drums and Eddie Hinton's succinct but blazing guitar solo on "That Lucky Old Sun"), and Burke brings the full weight of his fervent, churchy presence to each cut, especially the righteous "Uptight Good Woman" and a cover of "These Arms of Mine" that pays sincere tribute to Otis Redding while still sounding like pure Solomon Burke. Bell had already dropped Burke by the time Proud Mary's title cut had become a hit single, which seems like utter foolishness given the strength of this material -- Solomon Burke and the Muscle Shoals crew were a superb match, and this album finds them bringing out the best in one another. The bonus tracks are pretty interesting, including previously unissued covers of Bob Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn" and Sam Cooke's "Change Is Gonna Come," along with some non-LP singles that showed Burke absorbing (as he had on the Proud Mary album) some contemporary rock influences. His own "The Generation of Revelations," a 1969 single, made some fashionable lyrical bows to the counterculture; an odd 1970 single matched a post-Elvis Presley cover of "In the Ghetto" with the gospel rock of "God Knows I Love You," written by the unusual songwriting team of Delaney Bramlett and "In the Ghetto" composer Mac Davis

Solomon Burke - Proud Mary (The Bell sessions 1969-70)    (flac  325mb)

01 Proud Mary 3:17
02 These Arms Of Mine 2:54
03 I'll Be Doggone 2:54
04 How Big A Fool (Can A Fool Be) 2:13
05 Don't Wait Too Long 3:09
06 That Lucky Old Sun 2:58
07 Uptight Good Woman 2:44
08 I Can't Stop (No No No) 2:25
09 Please Send Me Someone To Love 2:59
10 What Am I Living For 2:53
Bonus
11 She Thinks I Still Care (Previously Unreleased) 3:17
12 I'm Gonna Stay Right Here 2:44
13 The Generation Of Revelations 2:28
14 In The Ghetto 3:39
15 God Knows I Love You 2:48
16 The Mighty Quinn (Previously Unreleased) 2:59
17 Change Is Gonna Come (Previously Unreleased) 2:33

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Raven's That's Heavy Baby gathers 22 Solomon Burke rarities he recorded for MGM between 1971 and 1973, following his career-defining soul hits for Atlantic in the '60s. During his brief stint with the label, Burke produced two enjoyable soul/gospel/country-inspired albums, Electronic Magnetism and We're Almost Home, plus contributed a few songs to the soundtrack of the blaxploitation film Cool Breeze. The majority of these cuts maintain a consistently high performance level with the exception of three insipid cover versions from Electronic Magnetism. The problem with Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Lookin' out My Back Door," Sly Stone's "Stand," and especially, "Three Psalms of Elton: Your Song/Border Song/Take Me to the Pilot" has nothing to do with the material or Solomon Burke's performance, but with the flashy arrangements drenched in background vocals. Imagine former Osmonds producer and onetime MGM head honcho Mike Curb behind the controls of a Stax record; not even Solomon Burke's commanding, booming delivery could rise above such garishness. Luckily, the remaining material is decent, as are the rare singles from the period: "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "Georgia up North," and "Here Comes the Train." That's Heavy Baby is a welcome retrospective of scarce material from this deep soul master.

Solomon Burke - That's Heavy Baby (MGM Years 71-73)    (flac 476mb)

01 The Electric Magnetism (That's Heavy Baby) 3:31
02 Three Psalms of Elton: Your Song/Border Song/Take Me to the Pilot 3:19
03 You Can Run But You Can't Hide 2:49
04 Stand 2:56
05 Bridge of Life 2:50
06 PSR 1983 4:16
07 Lookin' Out My Back Door 4:02
08 J.C. I Know Who You Are 4:26
09 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down 2:54
10 Get Up and Do Something for Yourself 3:14
11 Love's Street and Fool's Road 3:11
12 It Must Be Love 2:27
13 Then I Want to Come Home 1:33
14 We're Almost Home 2:26
15 I've Got to Do My Own Thing 3:43
16 Drown in My Own Tears 5:52
17 Everybody Wants to Fall in Love 3:27
18 I Can't Stop Loving You 5:24
19 Sweet, Sweet Reason 2:57
20 Misty 2:51
21 Georgia Up North 2:50
22 Here Comes the Train 4:17

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Both of Solomon Burke's mid-'70s Chess albums (Music to Make Love By and Back to My Roots) are on this single-disc anthology, The Chess Collection, along with a couple of non-LP cuts from the same era, "I'm Leaving on That Late, Late Train" and "Love's Paradise." Burke's Chess stint was an ill-fated association; Chess was on the verge of going out of business at the time, and while Burke's voice was still in form, the material was wholly inappropriate for his sensibilities. As happened to so many esteemed '60s soul vets in this era, rather than play to his strengths, the records tried to push the singer into the changing times with disco-fied production that virtually buried his personality. Music to Make Love By is a particularly embarrassing attempt to ride the Barry White bedroom-rap-spiced Love Man bandwagon, and though it may be amusing to hear Burke solemnly intone "it's so hard to make love to a picture, baby" on the title cut, you can't help but cringe in embarrassment on his behalf. While Back to My Roots dropped the faux Barry White shtick, it was a wildly inappropriate title for a record that, far from going back to Burke's gospel or country-soul roots, put his pipes to meager disco-tinged tunes (even on the song titled "I'm Going Back to My Roots," which does have a little blues buried in there). When he goes into all-out crooning disco mode for "Night and Day," the result is nothing less than ghastly. Only on "Everybody's Got to Cry Sometime," with a churchy piano and harmonica backing Burke's preach-shouting vocals, does the singer truly sound in his element. The non-LP "I'm Leaving on That Late, Late Train" single is a better effort than most of the tracks that made it onto the albums.

Solomon Burke - The Chess Collection     (flac 468mb)

01 Music To Make Love By (Part 1) 2:34
02 Let Me Wrap My Arms Around You 4:03
03 Come Rain Or Come Shine 3:32
04 You And Your Baby Blues (Album Version) 5:48
05 All The Way 4:29
06 Thanks I Needed That (Album Version) 4:08
07 Everlasting Love (Album Version) 4:11
08 Midnight And You (Album Version) 4:00
09 Music To Make Love By (Part 2) 2:24
10 Burning For Your Love 3:52
11 Night And Day 3:42
12 Everybody's Got To Cry Sometime 4:40
13 I'm Going Back To My Roots 5:09
14 Precious Flower 4:32
15 The Do Right Song 4:00
16 Life Has Its Ups And Downs 2:54
17 Over And Over (Hugging And Loving) 4:31
18 I'll Never Stop Loving You 3:31
19 I'm Having On That Late, Late Train (SIngle Version) 2:59
20 Love's Paradise 4:19

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While he wasn't scoring chart hits anymore, Burke hadn't lost any of his prowess by the mid-'80s. He cut one of the decade's great soul statements for Rounder in 1985. It's available on CD, and should be a revelation for anyone unaware of Burke's singing and performing zeal. His oral narratives were as smashing and memorable as his vocals, and the assembled band included a super three-piece horn section led by alto, tenor and baritone saxophonist Foots Samuel. This was no nostalgia trip, but a contemporary soul journey that retains its appeal years after its initial release.

Solomon Burke - A Change Is Gonna Come   (flac 225mb)

01 Love Buys Love 5:06
02 Got To Get Myself Some Money 4:58
03 Let It Be You And Me 3:05
04 Love Is All That Matters 3:17
05 Don't Tell Me What A Man Won't Do For A Woman 4:06
06 A Change Is Gonna Come 7:33
07 Here We Go Again 6:46
08 It Don't Get No Better Than This 4:01
09 When A Man Loves A Woman 3:19

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