QUEEN LATIFAH featuring AL GREEN / “Simply Beautiful”

Al Green is a superlative R&B vocalist. Queen Latifah – not so much. Strange then that on first listen, Queen Latifah’s cover of Al Green’s “Simply Beautiful” (from The Dana Owens Album) isn’t bad at all. That’s on first listen. But keep listening and it keeps getting better. The original, in case you’re not already familiar with it, is from Al’s 1972 album, I’m Still In Love With You. With tracks like “I’m Still In Love With You,” “For The Good Times,” “Love And Happiness” and “I’m Glad You’re Mine,” the album plays like a virtual greatest hits. Even so, “Simply Beautiful” stands out. In a career full of great vocal performances, the ethereal, wistful, evasive beauty of “Simply Beautiful” might just represent the best Al Green performance ever recorded. So how does Queen Latifah, a vocalist of admittedly limited ability, manage to cover “Simply Beautiful” so convincingly? Honestly, I don’t know. I will say the Queen Latifah version gets all the obvious things right. The pacing, mood and feel are all good even before Latifah starts to sing. The other thing is, Latifah just sounds like she knows what she’s singing about. We’ve all heard those remakes where the person is just repeating the lyrics and rehashing the melody. In those cases, it hardly matters how well or poorly the singer performs—if the feeling isn’t there, it can’t move you. In this case, I think it’s just the opposite. Latifah’s not just repeating lyrics, she’s expressing something she actually feels. You can tell she knows Al’s song. You can hear how much she loves it. So in the end, it’s hard to care whether or not Latifah can hit the notes Al can hit. The feeling is there and it moves you. —Mtume ya Salaam          Southern Soul          Mtume, if I had Al backing me up, I believe I could make a hit record. Seriously, Queen Latifah is coasting; the master is at work and all she has to do is sing (?!) a few notes and just float on Al’s vibe. I do agree she has sense enough to keep within her range, which, as you noted, is rather limited. And, you’re right the arrangement is on the money. But convincing? It’s a Hollywood production at best—the best this kind of production can achieve, which means that the musicians are the best money can buy, but it’s still not very deep. Now check Willie Clayton. A Mississippi soul singer from Indianola, Mississippi (B.B. King’s hometown). Born in 1956, Clayton got his professional start in Chicago around ‘69/’70. Later, he moved to Memphis and got a distribution deal with Hi Records, home of producer Willie Mitchell and Al Green. Clayton is one of those hard working Southern singers who drops at least one album a year, works year-round in small towns, and gets at least one regional radio hit every six or seven months. So my man decides to cover “Simply Beautiful” and guess what, he manages to hold his own even with the almost-cheesy synthesizers in the background. I’ve always thought “Simply Beautiful” was uncoverable because nobody else could do what Al Green does, but after listening to Clayton, and in consideration of what Latifah achieved with limited equipment, I’m now of the opinion that “Simply Beautiful” (especially with those beautiful chord changes) is a song more folk ought to try—that is if they have a love in mind that was, well, simply beautiful. Clayton certainly does. Now, let’s bring it back to the roots. Taken from the CD/DVD Al Green’s Greatest Hits – Deluxe Edition, this is the audio from a VH-1 performance on which Al Green plays acoustic guitar with only the backing of a friend on electric guitar (the percussion thump is actually foot taps on the floor). Here is where you hear (and you ought to see it, you really, really gotta see it!) Al Green deconstruct his song, dropping in a shout-out to VH-1 while getting deep into his hummed “EEE-eeee-EEEE’s.” The song is so good, if one has even an ounce of sincerity, it’s hard to do it badly. “Simply Beautiful” is one of the greatest love songs of all time. —Kalamu ya Salaam

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 24th, 2006 at 3:05 am and is filed under Cover. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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