I found this quite a sad record because the more I listened to Andrew Strong running gamely through soul classics like In The Dark End Of The Street and Mustang Sally, the more I realised that the 'beyond' of the title refers only to the fact that over two decades have now passed since he starred so memorably in The Commitments movie.
In other words, it signifies that musically he has not moved from his role as Declan 'Deco' Cuffe, the thuggish teenage bus conductor blessed with the gutsy voice of a true soul man.
The record proves that, as with X-Factor winners, it's not enough to be graced with a good singing voice, you also have to have something to say.
You could, of course, argue that Strong doesn't really need to change the material he performs. After all, I'm sure he can make a pretty decent living on the live circuit doing a kind of Tom Jones cabaret show. These songs are so good that they will never fail to draw an audience.
The drawback is that, on record, there's nothing here that adds much to the movie soundtrack of 1996 and certainly nothing that comes close to the 1960s versions of the songs.
An insurmountable hurdle is that he is essentially covering classics that cannot really be improved upon.
The best he and his band can hope to achieve is to replicate the emotion and energy of these R&B standards, no easy task when the definitive versions are by the likes of Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge and Al Green. I'm sure Strong would be the first to admit that these are the definitive recordings.
Take, for example, . This was first recorded as a show tune by the Ray Noble Orchestra in the 1930s and there have been countless versions ever since by artists ranging from Frank Sinatra to Sheena Easton. But it is Otis Redding's peerless Stax rendition of the song that stands as the benchmark. This is so great that it even puts an earlier version by the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, in the shade. Andrew Strong's spirited take can merely be added to the long list of noble, yet flawed, attempts.
|
The album is a live recording of a concert at St-Girons, Ariege, France from July 2012 with a seven-piece backing band.
Six of the fifteen tracks are songs that featured on The Commitment's original soundtrack and the others are in the same Blues Brothers vein.
The only rock songs he sings are the encores of Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild and Jimi Hendrix's Fire.
The album also comes with a three-track bonus CD of studio duets with Claudio Tagbo (I Feel Good / Soul Man) and Nico Wayne Toussant (I Heard It Through The Grapevine).
I think the only real market for this album is for those who have seen Andrew Strong live and want a memento of the occasion. If you like these songs you have to go back to the 1960s recordings.
Andrew Strong's website
|
