Both of Solomon Burke's mid-'70s Chess albums (Music to Make Love By and Back to My Roots) are on this single-disc anthology, The Chess Collection, along with a couple of non-LP cuts from the same era, "I'm Leaving on That Late, Late Train" and "Love's Paradise." Burke's Chess stint was an ill-fated association; Chess was on the verge of going out of business at the time, and while Burke's voice was still in form, the material was wholly inappropriate for his sensibilities. As happened to so many esteemed '60s soul vets in this era, rather than play to his strengths, the records tried to push the singer into the changing times with disco-fied production that virtually buried his personality. Music to Make Love By is a particularly embarrassing attempt to ride the Barry White bedroom-rap-spiced Love Man bandwagon, and though it may be amusing to hear Burke solemnly intone "it's so hard to make love to a picture, baby" on the title cut, you can't help but cringe in embarrassment on his behalf. While Back to My Roots dropped the faux Barry White shtick, it was a wildly inappropriate title for a record that, far from going back to Burke's gospel or country-soul roots, put his pipes to meager disco-tinged tunes (even on the song titled "I'm Going Back to My Roots," which does have a little blues buried in there). When he goes into all-out crooning disco mode for "Night and Day," the result is nothing less than ghastly. Only on "Everybody's Got to Cry Sometime," with a churchy piano and harmonica backing Burke's preach-shouting vocals, does the singer truly sound in his element. The non-LP "I'm Leaving on That Late, Late Train" single is a better effort than most of the tracks that made it onto the albums, yet it can't save a collection that most Burke fans will find not just an aberration, but downright abhorrent.
sebastianrakowski