An oasis of calm in the midst of all the crazy, scary politico-talk as we approach the 2016 US Election, a beautiful song, ‘For the Love of You’, music by Chris Jasper and lyrics by Ernie Isley (both songwriters, not just Ernie, members of the legendary ‘The Isley Brothers’). This beautiful song is a track on The Isleys’ 1975 album ‘The Heat is On’.
For your listening pleasure (and if it’s not your ‘cup of tea’, nothing’s lost – it’s most certainly my cuppa!), the original, by those Isleys, followed by two sublime covers.
The Isley Brothers with, of course, the sweet, exquisite, dreamy vocals of Ronald:
Next up, Phil Perry. I stumbled across this great soul singer just a couple of weeks ago. I really don’t know how I arrived at 50 years of age without hearing this beautiful singing voice. This is a great cover version of ‘For the Love of You’ (entitled, as this cover, ‘Living for the Love of You’), from Perry’s 2001 album, ‘Magic’. This is a silky, lavish, jazzy, funky, fuller sound, a big production, whereas The Isley’s original is, relatively, minimalistic. I think this is great:
Now, a more upbeat, raw cover: Seal, from one of my favourite albums of modern times (not that my children regard 2011 as ‘modern’), ‘Soul 2’ (check it out, and listen to Seal’s 2008 album, ‘Soul’, two albums of great 60’s and 70’s covers):
My intention was to just incorporate these three versions in this blog but, for an encore, I’ll add another magnificent performance by Phil Perry (and the late, great George Duke), here singing ‘Forever’, from the 1991 album, ‘The Heart of the Man’. This great song was written by the prolific, colossally talented Brenda Russell (remember ‘Piano in the Dark’?). There is no doubt about it, Phil is physically and emotionally fully invested in this performance!
I hope you enjoyed this blog as much as I enjoyed putting it together, a terrific musical prelude to my signing off – time to get some zzzzzzz’s in. Good night.
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