Someday, I'm going to devote an "Under Review" post devoted solely to Donny Hathaway, along the lines of my previous ones on Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. Hathaway was one of the greatest singers ever to walk this planet, and deserving of a post to his own. In the meantime, I wanted to touch on the magic that Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack created together as a duo. Sure, there were great male-female soul duos in the past (Otis Redding-Carla Thomas, and Marvin Gaye-Tammi Terrell, to name a few), but nothing touches these two together as a duo. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Flack's solo catalog as a whole (some smooth jazz albums in there that are too smooth for my taste), other than possibly First Take and Chapter Two, both very solid early 70's soul albums. Hathaway, I could go on for hours about his voice and his albums. Though a brief career recording-wise, everything in his catalog is essential...but I digress.
Released in 1972, Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway is an absolute stunner of an album, from "I (Who Have Nothing)" to "Be Real Black for Me" to "Where is the Love" to "Come Ye Disconsolate" (one of most beautifully recorded tradional gospel songs ever) to the closer "Mood" (listening to the instrumental of Hathaway's electric piano and Flack's piano together is Classical music minimalist beauty for the 20th Century). I really can't recommend this album enough. I wanted to post the track "Come Ye Disconsolate", and to my suprise, could not find full clip of the song via the internet. Instead, I thought a live clip of the duo performing "Baby I Love You" would suffice. Though a little lo-fi, the clip certainly shows the musical chemistry between these two extraordinary soul singers.
I totally agree, this is soooo good!
ReplyDeleteI who have nothing touched me the first time i heard it.
Pure Magic!