SOLOMON BURKE - Biography
2010
At a time when rock and roll was in its infancy and R&B was just starting to get its groove on, Solomon Burke burst onto the scene, shattered the cultural barriers of the time, scored a massive hit with “Just Out Of Reach (Of My Two Empty Arms)” and quickly redefined the way the world would think about music. Conquering hearts, moving hips and electrifying fans in ways no one thought possible, the Philadelphia born legend’s soul-stirring smashes and charismatic presence captured the imagination of young people like no one else of his era. Dubbed by legendary Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler as “the best soul singer of all time,” Burke, a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer since 2001, is more than simply a pioneering American legend from another time and place--he is an innovator whose timeless music spans generations and has inspired millions of fans and hundreds of recording artists across the decades.
As the world gears up for Burke’s 70th birthday in March, 2010, the millions of fans that to this day clamor for his live appearances and the brilliant showmanship should know where this explosive fusion of grace and music began: in an upper room at the United Praying Band The House of God for All People in West Philly, where he was born March 21, 1940 to the sounds of horns and bass drums from the sanctuary. Many artists claim to have their roots in the church, but few go back this far and run this deep. From day one, literally God and gospel were the driving forces behind the man and his music.
“The only thing I don’t know is what key I was crying in when I came into this world,” says Burke, who complements his diverse musical endeavors with his role as preacher and spiritual leader of the global church, House of God For All People. “But there I was, born in grace, and it was always easy for me to understand the goodness of God. I strived never to be too overwhelmed or overbearing with it and do what the Lord said to do.”
While teaching him to clearly enunciate the words to such songs as Gene Autry’s “Back In The Saddle Again,” Burke’s grandmother Eleanor Moore was a powerful spiritual medium who kept him in a futurist world as a child with her spiritual vision and projections of what his life would become. So perhaps it was all fore-ordained—the 17 million record sales; a soul standard (“Everybody Needs Somebody To Love”) that was covered by everyone from The Rolling Stones to Wilson Pickett and The Blues Brothers; a career resurrecting 2002 Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album (Don’t Give Up On Me) that introduced his genius to a whole new generation; one of his best known hits “Cry To Me” being used in the dance and seduction scene in “Dirty Dancing”; a performance for one of his biggest fans, Pope John Paul II, at the Vatican in 2000, and subsequent invitations to the Vatican’s Christmas celebration by John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI; and the achievement the singer calls his greatest, his astounding family of 21 children (14 daughters, 7 sons), 90 grandchildren and 19 great grandchildren.
Very soon after the demise of his grandmother, Burke found himself recording at age 14 for the independent Apollo label, where he turned his first song ever, “Christmas Presents From Heaven,” into a million selling gospel hit. Sensing a powerhouse sensation in the making, R&B tastemakers Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun, with the help of Burke’s manager Babe Shivan, brought him to Atlantic in 1960, where Burke would spend the next decade defining and redefining the essence of American soul music where gospel merged with pop and secular R&B. The singer broke through in 1961 with a cover of the country standard “Just Out Of Reach Of My Two Empty Arms” that was a quick smash on the R&B and pop charts; many credit Burke’s unique blend of R&B and country as opening the door for Ray Charles subsequent emergence.
Over the next seven years, Burke released 32 singles on Atlantic, many of which cracked both the R&B and pop charts, including six Top Ten R&B hits, four of which crossed over to the Top 40 -- “Just Out Of Reach (Of My Two Empty Arms),” “Cry To Me,” “Got To Get You Off Of My Mind,” “You’re Good For Me,” (penned by Don Covay), “Tonight’s The Night” and “If You Need Me” (written by Wilson Pickett). Burke has also been credited with helping keep Atlantic Records solvent from 1961 to 1964 with his steady stream of hits.
Burke has long been championed by peers, music critics and celebrity fans from across the generations. The late Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun called him “a great soul singer – probably the greatest.” Tom Waits says he’s “one of the architects of American Music.” Mick Jagger openly admitted trying to imitate the phrasing of Burke’s truly inimitable voice; “Cry To Me” was another Burke song covered by the Stones on Out of Our Heads. Everybody from contemporaries like Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett to Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty have performed Burke’s songs in concert.
The list of celeb fans, friends and admiring colleagues is endless: Travis Barker, Johnny Depp, Jerry Lee Lewis, Norah Jones, Anthony Hamilton, Ben Harper, Kid Rock, Dolly Parton, Elvis Costello, John Mayer, Buddy Miller, Dr. John, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, Chubby Checker, Fats Domino and Little Richard. Others include those singer/songwriters whose previously unrecorded songs Burke graced on Don’t Give Up On Me: Waits, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Van Morrison and Elvis Costello. Burke’s 2006 release Nashville featured duets with Parton and Emmylou Harris. 2007’s Make Do With What You Got included songs by Dr. John, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, to name a few, while Like A Fire (2008) had Burke’s brilliant interpretations of songs by Harper, Keb’ Mo’, Eric Clapton and Jesse Harris.
The singer says of his songwriting influences: “Gospel was part of my total career, not just something I started with, but something I live with, as my foundation and rock. I grew up a normal black kid in the ghetto, exposed to all kinds of music that influenced me as a songwriter and recording artist. I loved country, big band, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Perry Como, Doris Day, Gene Autry, Ray Charles, Dinah Washington, Roy Rogers—all of whom in some way inspired me to reach my goal of doing something extraordinary with my life that would connect with people. Every song I write has a different meaning, and each one is special because it depends on the situation of the moment in time when I wrote it. I am always flattered by the way other artists interpret my songs, but in the end it doesn’t matter how they do it. It’s more important that the message of the song reaches people. A simple example is ‘Everybody Needs Somebody To Love’ which is true for everyone. We all need somebody! If the message is meaningful in the beginning, it will reach across the waters and come back across time. If only one person is reached and touched by our songs, then the message through me is being heard, received and believed.”
Burke eventually left Atlantic and his great 60s soul heyday behind, but continued recording vigorously throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s, amassing a total of 22 soul and gospel albums during these years while taking time to raise his large brood. His recordings during this period include Electrophonic Magnetism, King Heavy, I Have a Dream, Back to My Roots, Music To Make Love By, Lord We Need A Miracle, Take Me, Shake Me, Soul Alive!, Soul Of The Blues, Live At The House of Blues and Definition Of Soul. In the 70s, he also worked behind the scenes for MGM, producing records and scoring films and TV. In 1987, the year “Cry To Me” was featured in Dirty Dancing, he appeared in the hit movie “The Big Easy” as “Daddy Mention.” Since his 2001 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and first Grammy win a year later introduced him to a whole new generation, Burke has enjoyed an exciting new phase of his career which has included various collaborative recordings, late night talk show appearances, studio collaborations and, all in 2004, performances with the hipster likes of Junkie XL and Italian rock blues icon Zucchero (including a show at the Royal Albert Hall) and an appearance in the blues documentary “Lightning In A Bottle.”
In 2006, Burke was among the rock, soul and country legends who sang with Jerry Lee Lewis at the live “Last Man Standing” concert at Sony Music Studio in New York. He also honored Ahmet Ertegun by co-hosting the March 2007 celebration of the Atlantic founder’s life at Lincoln Center, participating in the American Master’s documentary “Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet Built” and in December of that year, performing at the private after-party of the Led Zeppelin reunion concert along with Ben E. King, Percy Sledge and Sam Moore.
Earlier in 2009, Burke joined famed R&B producer Willie Mitchell at Mitchell’s Royal Studio in Memphis to work together on a new recording, marking the first time the two have worked together in their careers. Burke’s record label, The One Entertainment Systems, recently released Stepping Up & Stepping Out by former Blind Boys of Alabama members Clarence Fountain and Sam Butler; Burke served as its executive producer.
Burke is busier on the road than ever these days, amassing over 130,000 frequent flier miles this past year performing in the U.S., across Europe and “driving down muddy and snowy roads in countries we can’t even mention.” In addition to his 2008 summer European tour, which included concerts in Portugal, England, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Austria, France, Switzerland, Norway, Slovakia and Sweden.
“The thing I most enjoy is the people, the audience, just the thrill of being out there making personal contact and having the deeply spiritual experience of sharing music with so many grateful fans,” says Burke. “The band truly feeds off the vibrations of the people, and we use no set list, playing whatever comes to people’s minds or songs that people have emailed us and requested we play. Every show is a request show, and each audience in each city has different personal favorites. It’s like turning back the hands of time instantly. We can be in the middle of singing something from my recent Like A Fire album, and they’ll call out ‘Stupidity’ from 1957 and we’re back 50 years!
“What’s fun is that the audiences in both Europe and America range in age from five years old to my age and older, and the kids know these songs,” he adds. “They think I’m a big black Santa Claus, and I love them and always make sure to play what they want to hear. Still, no matter how much joy I’m having and sharing on the road, the best part of traveling is always coming home. You don’t realize the value of what you’ve done in your life until you leave castles with cooks and waiters and stages where you’re playing before thousands of people. You come home and your grandchild says, ‘Can you make me a hamburger?’ and suddenly everything seems so real.”
Nothing's Impossible Complete Liner Notes
SOLOMON BURKE/NOTHING’S IMPOSSIBLE
Musical marriages are the heart and soul of the most enduring melodies. Like the old Motown tune declares: it takes two, baby! Lennon & McCartney, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Jam & Lewis, and Gamble & Huff are just a few of the sonic partnerships that have birthed the sweetest musical fruit.
The late Willie Mitchell and his protégé Al Green picked from that same eternal Tree of Music when they harvested an abundance of uniquely uptown, southern soul staples such as “Let’s Stay Together” and “Love and Happiness” in the `70s. Their union spawned more than 25 Billboard R&B chart hits and defined the distinctive HI Records sound: a combination of Mitchell’s subdued string arrangements, the 4/4 drum hum, vibrant horn lines, gurgling altar-call organ swells and raw emotional outbursts. No musical savant can honestly think of Al Green without also pondering the genius of Willie Mitchell who had also collaborated with the likes of Ike & Tina, O.V. Wright and produced Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand the Rain” which John Lennon called “the best record ever.”
And for over three decades, Mitchell had talked and fussed about getting another musical brother into the studio, Solomon Burke, the King of Rock and Soul. “We had a 35 year relationship over the telephone,” Burke recalls of the man whom he never met face to face until October 2008. “We were supposed to meet about coming to the studio to record there, do something and never did get a chance to do it. A couple of times I came to Memphis and meant to get by the studio and I just never did.
“Besides, Jerry Wexler and all of those people prevented me from going down there to Willie’s studio,” Burke recalls of the legendary A&R man who supervised the ascents of Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and Burke at Atlantic Records – nicknamed the house that Ruth Brown, and other `50s era R&B stars built off of their million-selling hit records. Burke supplied Atlantic with his own spirit-fused brand of southern soul in the `60s with such down-to-earth hosannas as “Got to Get You Off My Mind,” “Cry to Me,” “”Tonight’s the Night” and “Just Out of Reach (Of My Two Open Arms),” and “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love.”
Fate intervened and finally brought these two musical icons together in late 2008. Burke had driven in from his home in the Los Angeles area to perform at the Golden Moon Hotel & Casino in Philadelphia, Mississippi. “After playing there, I decided that since I was in the area, why not stop through Memphis for some barbecue and finally meet this guy Willie Mitchell.”
It was as if the Prodigal son had returned. “I got to the studio and he was there and we met like old brothers,” Burke recalls. “We laughed and told some stories and stuff and he said, `Man, you ain’t leaving here `till you do something in this studio. You here now so you might as well go and get you a pizza or something and sit down while I get you a song. Let me call some boys over here.”
Within a couple of hours, the studio was full of musicians and the curious as Mitchell presented Burke with Anne Murray’s 1978 #1 pop chestnut “You Needed Me.”
Burke wondered why this song? A guitarist was running it down while Mitchell got everything else in place for the session. Burke just sat back and watched Mitchell directing people around when Mitchell finally blurted out, “Put on your headphones and get in the studio man! You can’t make no record standing here looking at me.”
Mitchell’s brotherly jabs were mischievous. “I said, `man you’re crazy,’” Burke laughs. “But, I’m gonna go in here and sing the heck out of it.’”
“You better!” Mitchell snapped. “I’ll cut the mic off if you ain’t singing it right.”
The phone buddies clowned back and forth throughout the process. “Do it one more time,” Mitchell commanded. “You missed two words there.”
“I don’t know the song, man,” Burke said in his own defense.
“I didn’t ask you to know it,” Burke recalls Mitchell clowning. “I asked you to sing the song. Sing it like you want to put your hand up my skirt. “
They both laughed and got back to business.
“Ooh that’s it,” Mitchell conceded after the next take. He then summoned for Burke’s manager, Jane Vickers. “Jane, come here baby,” he cajoled.
“Are you gonna play it back for me?” Burke asked.
“Nah, I aint gonna let you hear it,” Mitchell deadpanned. He played it for Burke’s daughter Candy and for Vickers. They played it three times and Burke asked once more, “Well, can I hear it now?’
“You’ll hear it when the record comes out on the charts,” Mitchell shot back. “You don’t need to hear it now. You didn’t hear `Just Out of Reach’ until it was on the chart.”
They ate, recorded and did the dozens until 3:30 a.m. when they finally finished a song that Burke and Mitchell wrote on the spot. They named it “Dreams.”
Burke said: “I’m going home man.”
Mitchell said, “You better come back here and finish this album. I’m gonna start writing songs right now.”
Burke had some business to take care of so he headed back to the west coast and when he got home, he spent some time with the tracks he and Mitchell had finished. “This man is really into me,” he said to himself as he listened to the detail and delight Mitchell had infused in the production. Mitchell’s son, Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell, called up one day and said, “Daddy is writing like he ain’t never written before and he’s got a song called…”
Just then, Mitchell grabbed the phone and said, “Let me tell him! I got a song called `Nothing’s Impossible.’ I wrote it last night.”
Burke had two open weeks in his schedule but ended up spending five weeks with Mitchell in the grip of winter. When he arrived back at Mitchell’s storied Royal Studio, Burke’s throne (after all, he is the King of Rock and Soul and uses it to rule his kingdom of soul all over the world) was sitting there in the studio. “Jesus is in the house, Boo,” Mitchell cracked to his son.
For the last decade, Mitchell had been training Boo and he had become his right hand in running the studio. “Anything his father wanted, Boo got it,” Burke observed of the younger Mitchell. “It was always, `Yes, Daddy.’” Aside from handling the business operations of Royal Studios, Boo and his brother, Archie, had also helped perpetuate the mystique of their dad’s sound. Aside from the veterans who continued to trek to the studio, they also draw the attention of young superstars such as Anthony Hamilton and John Mayer who have recorded there in recent years. “I’m proud of what he was doing with his sons,” Burke adds. “They have a beautiful family and they made my family a part of their family. Willie and I both have grandsons named Ethan. Willie said, `Who names a kid Ethan but you and me?’”
“If I could turn back the hands of time,” Burke pauses. “I would freeze frame every second of it. It hurts so much to know that I won’t get that chance again. When God gives you an opportunity, you take it. You know when God’s in it because everything works. No matter how hard you try for it not to work, it works… When I got there, it was the last great shot. It was all of him. I had all of his attention. I had him working. He was writing, night and day. He was playing the piano and arranging the horn parts. Doing the strings.”
Something spiritual and beyond a mere recording session was manifesting. “There was an urgency of Now,” Burke ponders in retrospect. “I didn’t realize the urgency. I just thought this is a dream session, this is a team session. This is one of the greatest educations I’m gonna ever have. Here’s somebody teaching me something that I needed to know for years. I’m listening, I’m learning, and he’s pushing me. He’s pushing me but he pushed me long enough for me to say, ` man, I did that 27 times.’ He said, ` it’s only 1 o’clock, you can do it as long as it takes for you to get it right. So, just keep on doing it.”
They kept on doing it and the results are no less than spectacular. Just like Rick Rubin recast Johnny Cash’s swan song on American Recordings and Jack White transformed the coalminer’s daughter Loretta Lynn into the Van Lear Rose, Mitchell’s blueprint is all over these musical sketches of Solomon Burke.
Listen to the seductive string intro to “Oh, What A Feeling,” a ballad cut from the same cloth that formed the fabric of Bobby Womack’s “That’s the Way I Feel About Cha” or “I’m Through Trying to Prove My love to You.” Passion personified.
There’s a lot of passion here. The stirring “It Must Be Love” is a straight-up testimony to the sweetness of love is when it’s new and warm. “New Company” delves into the bitterness of love that’s grown cold after the heart has moved on. “When You’re Not Here” speaks of loneliness while “Say You Love Me Too” sings of yearning. The bouncy “Everything About You” is the ultimate pick-up line set to music while “You’re Not Alone” offers that certain someone a little emotional assurance. “Error of My Ways,” co-written by Candy Burke and Mitchell, is bluesy contrition while “Nothing Is Impossible” is a challenge to the mind to follow the heart and “Dreams” is an intoxicating muse on unrequited love. What about the conflicting feelings of deciding to go when you want to stay on the salty blues “I’m Leaving”?As they say in the Sanctified church, Brother Burke did his good Sunday morning singing on this project.
Of Burke’s legendary `60s material, Jerry Wexler wrote in his memoirs that “Solomon was churchy without being coarse, his melisma subtle and restrained, his voice an instrument of exquisite sensitivity.” His skills remain in tact, ringing emotional depth out of every gentle sigh or thunderous holler.
“The lyrics and the concepts are strong,” Burke adds. “I connected with them because it was a different pathway. Knowing the journey that I’ve been on since 1954, I needed to go down a new highway but at the same time I needed what I was familiar with. So after I got to the highway I was familiar with, Willie Mitchell took me to the expressway.” In many ways, Nothing’s Impossible is a conversation between two brothers. One minute they are teasing each other and the next, they are sharing war stories on the battlefield of love. It’s about their communication which is why even background vocals are scarce and only surface – briefly – on half a hand of songs like the falsetto quartet blend on “It Must Be Love.” Even Mitchell’s legendary orchestra takes a backseat as this musical rap session takes place.
Mitchell was proud of what had been created with Burke and Boo. Whenever an artist visited the studio, from Elvis Costello to Rod Stewart, Mitchell whisked out the Burke project and they listened. Mitchell was so excited about this album that he had gone to New York and started circulating songs to the various recording labels.
Imagine Burke’s shock and surprise when Mitchell fell ill suddenly in late 2009. “I still say how did that happen?” he asks now. He and Mitchell talked on the phone virtually every day. “I told him, `you know you ain’t sick,’” Burke teased when he heard. “I talked to him and we laughed. I said, `man come out that hospital’ and the next week he was gone [January 5, 2010].”
“I feel the presence of his spirit all over this album which is amazing,” Burke shares. “I see a lot of things I never saw before. I didn’t understand the song `You Needed Me’ until the day of his funeral. I sat in that church and I understood that we needed each other at that point in time. I needed to reconnect with someone that was true and who could say to me that just because you’re 70 years old doesn’t mean that you can’t sing like you should sing or want to sing. Use what God gave you. It was such a great message to keep going forward and to keep your dreams. Willie said, `Remember what I told you: nothing is impossible.’ I said, ` you’re right, absolutely right.’ You build your own dreams and believe in God and believe in yourself and those dreams will come true… He came here and did what he had to do. He did his last show and now he’s going on to do the real show. They need a real producer up there in heaven.”
“I just go by feel. That’s the secret,” Mitchell once said in describing his approach to making music to Bob Mehr, a scribe at the The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis. After Mitchell passed, Boo was going through his dad’s session notes on this project and discovered that he intended to name the CD Nothing’s Impossible. As always, young Mitchell says, “Yes, Daddy” one more time, and makes Willie’s last request a reality. When you hear and feel this album with your heart and soul, and realize this masterpiece was over 35 years in the making, you too will then know that Nothing’s Impossible.
By Bil Carpenter whose writing has appeared in People magazine and The Washington Post.