I first heard about Donny Hathaway a couple of years back in an issue of Loaded. There was a small musical section in the back that dealt with new Cd releases: old classics rubbed shoulders with the latest d&b, r&b, rock etc. The article was about Extensions of a Man, an album I later checked out but didn't pay much attention to, sadly.
It wasn't until recently I picked up the thread again. Listening to some cheesily wicked Roberta Flack, I came across a few duets he'd done with her, the most famous being Where is the Love? I knew about this track from a Grover Washington cover, so the order of discovery was really fucked up. If the path there wasn't in a straight line, I still got there in the end.
So the album in question this time was Donny Hathaway Live, and my particular favourite track, and I do mean particular (imagine if you will a whole heap of wickedness, a pile of lusty gems the like to make your soul's fortune, and every one is a drooler, but you have to choose one above all the others) is Jealous Guy. Fuck me this guy's got a voice like a pan of warm caramel, and he just keeps on pouring it out. As my darling friend ____ said about Elvis' voice : 'It's like a warm chocolate egg bursting inside you'. And Al Green too : his voice is like a chocolate grinder, all that rich high pitched laughing goodness showering out from the speakers. You almost feel guilty it's that good.
A horifically trivial top 3 of my favourite voices (and subject to change):
1) Donny Hathaway
2) Jean Carne
3) Al Green (see what I did there? Clever eh?)
Get listening!
