Like A Fire
Solomon Burke has persevered. After their initial successes, many mid-60s R&B singers struggled with the ever-changing and fickle audiences that would often jump to the next big thing, leaving the veterans as yesterday’s news. Burke’s classic tone and his emotional elegance never deserted him. Over the years he has recorded a number of fine albums that never received the audience they deserved, but it never withered his confidence. 2008’s *Like a Fire* is an attempt by veteran producer Steve Jordan to supply Burke with a solid backing band — Danny Kortchmar on guitar, Larry Taylor on bass, Jordan on drums — and songs that bring out the best in Burke’s timbre. Cameos by Ben Harper and Keb’ Mo are welcomed, but hardly tip the balance of the album, which remains centered on Burke’s warm delivery for tunes such as the Eric Clapton penned title track, Keb’ Mo’s “We Don’t Need It,” and Harper’s “A Minute to Rest and a Second to Pray.”
Like a Fire opens with its title song, one of two new tunes Eric Clapton gave to Solomon Burke for this album, and from the first notes this sounds very much like an Eric Clapton album.
When last we heard Solomon Burke, he fulfilled a lifelong ambition to record a country album with Nashville (2006).