Ben E. King - What Is Soul 1967

his last new album for three years, What Is Soul? was actually the product of two years' work. In that sense, it nearly rivaled the preceding Seven Letters as a representative body of King's work -- except that at this point his back was to the wall, his chart action fading as he found himself increasingly marginalized in the changing music marketplace of the second half of the 1960s. King, like contemporaries such as Dee Clark and his one-time group the Drifters (soul pioneers all, who were getting pushed aside by the earthier sounds coming out of studios like Stax in Memphis), was losing his audience as the mid-'60s wore on. Yet the audience that he retained expected him to do the same songs -- and "Stand by Me," "Don't Play That Song," etc., were all fine numbers, but increasingly thought of as "oldies" rather than "soul" as it was defined from the mid-'60s onward. From early 1965 through the beginning of 1967, King had recorded material with less majestic, more earthily soulful arrangements, pushing his singing harder in the bargain, and all of that material was collected for this LP. The result was, with the notable exception of "Goodnight My Love" (a definite throwback to his early-'60s sound), his most fiercely contemporary album -- not that anyone was ever going to mistakeBen E. King for, say, Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett, to name just two labelmates on Atlantic who were burning up the charts just then, but he was at least in the competition. The material and arrangements are surprisingly suitable to King without too much of a difference in his own style, and one imagines that if this album could just have been widely heard, if might well have kept him off the oldies circuit for a few more years, and playing to late-'60s and early-'70s soul listeners instead. It's still worth hearing four decades on, as a harbinger of his more successful transformation in the 1970s. AMG.

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Ben E. King - Sings For Soulful Lovers 1962

After parting ways with the Drifters in 1960, Ben E. King wasted no time establishing himself as a solo star with chart-toppers like "Spanish Harlem" and "Stand by Me," in which he made the most of his strong and expressive vocal style. Having scored on the R&B and pop charts, King's third album for Atco, Ben E. King Sings for Soulful Lovers, plays like a bid to cross over to more mature listeners after scoring big with the teens, much in the manner of Sam Cooke; the album is dominated by songs already made famous by other artists, featuring a blend of soulful chestnuts and classic standards, and the production and arrangements are polished and classy while still retaining the influence of the "rhythm & blues with strings" style that had become his hallmark. While "He Will Break Your Heart," "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," and "It's All in the Game" seem tailor-made for King, some of the other cuts are a bit of a creative stretch, especially "Moon River" and "On the Street Where You Live," both of which sound rather clumsy in this context despite the struggle to make them swing. But Kingnever gives less than his level best on these sessions, no matter what the material happens to be, and he effortlessly walks a line between supper-club polish and passionate sweet soul. If Ben E. Kingdidn't become a regular in Las Vegas or at the Copacabana like Sam Cooke or Lou Rawls, it's certainly not because he lacked the style or the chops, and if the song selection sometimes lets him down on Sings for Soulful Lovers, his voice and his phrasing are spot-on on all 12 tracks. AMG.

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