The Best of James Carr
Kent CDKENM 472

In any list of the world’s greatest soul singers, one man who deserves to be up there with Otis Redding, Sam Cooke and Wilson Pickett would have to be James Carr.

Beset by personal demons, the Memphis singer may never have achieved the lasting success of his contemporaries, but he left behind a body of work that includes some of the greatest southern soul ballads ever put on record.

Tracks such as “You’ve Got My Mind Messed Up”, “Pouring Water on A Drowning Man” and “Love Attack” are the very essence of what most would consider to be classic soul.

And of course, there’s one song in a particular, the Dan Penn and Chips Moman-penned classic about cheating love, “The Dark End of The Street”, that is simply one of the finest soul records ever produced.

This mid-priced collection, compiled by experts Ady Croasdell and Tony Rounce, gathers all those recordings together along with lesser-known tracks such as Carr’s aching take on Redding’s “These Arms of Mine” and the originally unissued “A Lucky Loser”, to produced a a 20-track selection without a single dud track.

If you haven’t got these tracks already, do yourself a favour and buy it. It’s an essential five-star release.

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