James Carr may well have been one of the greatest soul singers of them all, but there's not much footage of the man in action. This, as you can see, is late in his career:
It's a fine performance, and the man gives it everything, but you can tell from his eyes that he's having trouble there. He's not quite pulling it off. Compare with the sublime recorded version from 1966: those little quavers in his voice that worked so well when he was in his prime - that made him what many regarded as the World's Greatest Soul Singer - just aren't there any more.
It's a sad story, because...well, his mind was messed up. He suffered from what we'd now call bipolar disorder. He was always too unreliable, too troubled, to make it to the big time alongside contemporaries like Otis Redding. He was, as Robert Gordon's excellent article on the man puts it, "way out on a voyage".
His biggest hit was The Dark End of the Street. It's a classic now, but it's a difficult song to get right. It should be about the heartbreak of hidden illicit love, but in the wrong hands can make you think of a sordid late-night quickie down a back alley. Clarence Carter has some fun with it. It's never been done better than Carr's original.
He died in 2001, aged 58.
I never understood the fuss about Otis Redding until this came out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXmLjbTBcdU
Posted by: Dom | June 17, 2011 at 04:38 PM