Terry Callier - Occasional Rain
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Cadet/Verve 06251 7664883 ****Callier (v, g), Charles Stepney (org, harpsichord), Leonard Pirani (p), Sydney Simms (b), Bob Crowder (d), Kitty Haywood, Minnie Riperton, Shirley Wahls (v) and Earl Madison (c) Rec. 1972 Although he can lay claim to the soul folk crown with as much authority as anybody, the Chicago singer has always had a more complicated DNA. ‘Ordinary Joe’, the fine opener on this much sought-after collector’s item makes it clear that Callier can swing like Nina Simone and “blues you like Joe Williams.” In his whole aesthetic there is a sense of the importance of his native Chicago as an essential confluence of many strands of black music. And yet the combination of Callier’s plaintive songwriting and Charles Stepney’s devastatingly ethereal arrangements produced a quite unique sound here that was not that far removed from the sublime gothic gospel of the Rotary Connection. In other words, the general mood here is sombre.
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