Chuck Roberson
Daddy B. Nice's #71 ranked Southern Soul Artist
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Chuck RobersonDaddy B. Nice's #71 ranked Southern Soul Artist |
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"Love Freak" Chuck Roberson Composed by Maurice Davis and James Smith October 21, 2012: NEW ALBUM ALERT
--Daddy B. Nice About Chuck Roberson Chuck Roberson was born in the late 1940's in Augusta, Georgia and moved with his family to Florida, where he spent his formative years. He began his professional career in the 70's, issuing a series of singles on small regional labels in the South.
Song's Transcendent Moment "It's been so long
Tidbits 1.
CHUCK ROBERSON: For Real This Time (CDS) Three Stars *** Solid. The artist's fans will enjoy.Chuck Roberson's For Real This Time is an excellent outing that will please his core audience. CDS Records continues and even improves on its all "live-instrument" style, with its spare, respectful homage to sixties and early-seventies, vintage-soul arrangements. Special mention has to go to guitarist Mike Gallaher, who practically steals the album, and--to a lesser extent--the restrained horn section of Quinton Ware and Mike McDaniel.Chuck is in good vocal form--engaging, friendly and well-balanced. But you do finish the CD knowing he still hasn't recorded a song that would convert anyone to Southern Soul. He still hasn't had a bona fide "Southern Soul hit." Most artists of Chuck's stature and longevity have a signature tune that thrust them into the public eye: Theodis Ealey's "Stand Up In It," Carl Marshall's "Good Loving Will Make You Cry," Mel Waiters' "Hole In The Wall." And yet, even allowing for the slippery nature of that term "Southern Soul hit," it's safe to say Chuck Roberson has never had one. He's acquired his reputation through a journeyman's consistency, a little "smoke and mirrors," and a professional tenacity that illustrates the old Benjamin Disraeli axiom: "The secret of success is constancy of purpose." The best and most hummable cuts on For Real This Time are "I Want You To Rock Me," "At The Hideaway" (with a great guitar lick) and "A Change Is Gonna Come." "The Lollipop Man Can" and "Show Me What You're Working With" deserve special mention. CDS's Dylann DeAnna has taken upon himself a kind of personal crusade to reprise and rejuvenate the careers of Southern Soul's second-rank performers--witness the recent Barbara Carr album, Savvy Woman--and For Real This Time follows the same formula, matching pristine background around a tried and true vocalist. All but one of the songs are done in the usual mid-tempo, Roberson style: nice-guy, easy-going, don't-ruffle-any-feathers. However, Chuck's version of "A Change Is Gonna Come" is an eye-opener. It's obviously performed as a "tribute" song, but in imitating the more operatic Cooke style Roberson achieves a range and an intensity seldom if ever before hinted at. It raises the question of why Roberson has never ventured beyond the emotionally-even, middle-of-the-road vocal stylings that have been his bread and butter over the years. A recent press release from his label provides some insight, advertising the CD as "Chuck Roberson and that Old School sound. . . Chuck has made an album for all those who still love the old-school Tyrone Davis sound." The thing is, if you're imitating or emulating Tyrone Davis (as opposed to, say, Sam Cooke), you're walking a very fine line--let's call it a Bing Crosby kind of casualness--which even Tyrone the Master frequently slipped from during his prolific recording career. That was why quality material was so crucial to Davis, who ransacked every Southern Soul hit within sight and covered it. But for Chuck Roberson, who is not the singer Tyrone Davis was, to walk that tightrope-fine line verges on mediocrity more often than not. Good clean fun, mind you, but light fun. The mostly-admirable "At The Hideaway" is an example. The guitar on the well-put-together composition is better than the vocal. Chuck's vocal is just middling, nothing to write home about. And Chuck seems to be content with that--and pretty much always has. That's why Chuck's rendition of Sam Cooke (which sounds live) is such a revelation. On "A Change Is Gonna Come" Chuck sings better than he does on any of "his" songs. Is it because he's trying to imitate Sam Cooke? His voice is sweeter and more emotional. Why does he put so much more feeling--and so many more vocal nuances--into this song as opposed to his own? It makes you wonder if Chuck wasn't born to imitate--and do it really well. And it's as if now that Johnnie Taylor (not to mention Tyrone Davis) is dead, Chuck no longer has a really great artist to imitate--that is, to make him excel. In the meantime, Roberson's music yearns to join that upper echelon of the music, and that monumental single--that "holy grail" of a Southern Soul hit song--still beckons. Chuck is getting up in years--I'd guess somewhere in the early-sixties about now--but don't count him out. Stranger things have happened. --Daddy B. Nice Bargain-Priced For Real This Time CD, MP3's 5. March 1, 2011: NEW ALBUM ALERT Bargain-Priced Deep South Southern Soul CD, MP3's Comparison-Priced Deep South Southern Soul CD Recommended Singles: "Jamming With The Blues," "Deep South Southern Soul" See Daddy B. Nice's Top Ten "Breaking" Southern Soul Singles for February 2011 If You Liked. . . You'll Love If you can imagine Chic's "Le Freak" de-disco-fied and transformed into a Southern Soul hit, you'd be pretty close to Chuck Roberson's "Love Freak." Honorary "B" Side "I Want You To Rock Me" |
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