About this CD
- Release date: June 10, 2008
- Label: Shout! Factory
- Catalog number: 31084
- Produced by Steve Jordan
- Co-produced by Jeff Palo
- Musicians: Solomon Burke: vocals; Steve Jordan: acoustic guitar, bass, percussion, drums, electric guitar, vocals, background vocals, hand clapping; Dean Parks: acoustic guitar, banjo, pedal steel guitar, slide guitar; Larry Goldings: piano; Rudy Copeland: organ; Danny Kortchmar: guitar; Michael Lang: piano, celesta; David Paich: organ, Wurlitzer; Andrew Shulman: cello, soloist; John Walz: cello; Armen Ksadjikian: cello; Cecilia Tsan: cello; Arnold McCuller: background vocals; Candy Burke: background vocals, hand clapping; Shawn Amos: background vocals, hand clapping; Meegan Voss: background vocals; Jesse Harris and the Ferdinandos: acoustic guitar
- Strings contracted by Ross De Roche
- String arrangements by Mark Watters
- Engineered by Don Smith
- Mastered by Greg Calbi
- Executive Producer: Shawn Amos
Pros
- Producer Steve Jordan and his all-star cast of musicians and songwriters are consummate professionals, and they create a backdrop so elegantly crafted it seems designed to garner him one more golden statuette.
- Solomon remains an adept storyteller and a convincing vocalist.
Cons
- Burke is surrounded by a lot of talent on this album -- just not the kind he needs.
- The groove, tight as it is, is a decidedly sleepy one.
- For someone who made his career on drama, there's shockingly little emotional nuance to the new material.
My review
Four albums later, it's perhaps easy to see why Burks fatigue has set in -- not that he's lost a drop of soul. But the wan, halfhearted, deathly slick and oddly titled Like A Fire, tellingly produced by session legend Steve Jordan, surrounds Solomon with the pens of Eric Clapton, Ben Harper, and Keb' Mo instead, and the difference is pronounced. Jordan, one of the industry's most notable drummers for hire, lays down a series of notable, if easygoing, grooves: "You And Me" is a Hi Records tribute whose bottom is appreciably fat, while "Ain't That Something" splits the stylistic difference between the Staple Singers and Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise. But Burke's not just any soulman, and his particular fire needs to be matched to a compelling story, either detailed or hinted at. Jordan's antiseptic production and the cast's lazy, overfamiliar writing sabotage his methodology at every turn. Sometimes the great man himself seems a little bored.
