Donny Hathaway - These Songs for You Live

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Music reviews of These Songs for You Live

Music Review: Release is flawed as a concept, but oh what music!
Rating: 4 Stars

Donny Hathaway "Live" is one of the greatest live albums ever made and one of my desert island discs. I own about 1200 CDs and only carry around 24 in a wallet at one time. Donny Hathaway "Live" is a permanent resident in that wallet along with Coltrane's "A Love supreme." Unfortunately, "Live" is only available as a pricey import right now. In the liner notes to "These Songs", David Nathan writes, "fate, destiny, or the ups and downs of the biz meant the reissues never happened" when explaining why "Live" was not released domestically on CD. "These Songs" is a compilation that has some of the highlights from the original "Live" album and the posthumous "In Performance", especially "What's Going On", "You've Got a Friend", and "The Ghetto". There's much classic material missing, however. Donny's cover of "Jealous Guy" isn't here, one of my favorite tracks on that album. Willie Weeks' classic bass solo on "Voices Inside" , which shows him as an extension of Motown's James Jamerson, is also absent. From "In Performance", the live version of "Young, Gifted, and Black" is a major omission. I think those new to Donny Hathaway would have benefitted from a rerelease of "Live" with some of the unreleased material on this compilation as bonus tracks. I think collectors would have preferred a live two disc compilation with all of the available live sides or even better [please, Rhino please!] a complete box set worthy of this great artist's stature.

Another big problem is that this CD does not play well on all players. This would not play on my Sony CD walkman or my 12 year old AIWA stereo system. It did play fine through my DVD player and it plays fine on my Sony box. I returned a copy to Borders as defective before I realized that it was simply incompatible with my player.

So, yell at Atlantic for not handling the reissues first and putting out something that doesn't play....

And then listen to the marvellous music. The unreleased material is stellar stuff. "Flying Easy" and "Valdez in the Country" emphasize Donny's electric piano chops and jazz skills. On "Extensions of a Man", where these tracks originally appeared, the arrangements provide a luxurious setting but require more restrained playing. On the live versions, Donny really lets loose and his drummer goes right with him on the breaks. "Someday Will All Be Free" is fine vocally, but again its Donny's piano playing where the trumpet solo is on the studio version that adds new meaning to the track. "He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother" is a vocal tour de force and shows all the gospel music that fills Donny's art. "Yesterday" is a nice chart, but I think "Jealous Guy" would have been a better choice for all but the Donny completists. "Superwoman" is a real revelation. So many have commented on how Donny was a key influence on Stevie Wonder's mature work starting with "Music of My Mind". Well, here you have Donny Hathaway covering a track from that album and showing all he can do vocally. Magnificent! The interview at the end of the album is a nice touch and a window into the depth of this man's interests as a man and as an artist. It only adds to the tragic nature of his incomplete body of work.

The music is awesome and this is definitely worth your time and money. I just hope that Rhino corrects the technical issues and does not allow this to be a peace offering in place of a deserved live reissue campaign.

4.5 stars [6 stars music, 3 stars concept]

--SD

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