Grammy Award-winning soul and country artist Solomon Burke's album "Nashville" was released in 2006 with 14 tracks on the CD.
It features country-rock style guest vocals by Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Patty Griffin, Gillian Welch and Patty Loveless.
Clearly a lover of country music, Burke nevertheless still seems a strange person to be recording an album with such a strongcountry influence but the guest vocalists help do the work of making an authentic-sounding country feel, along with theNashville-style instrumentation and arrangements.
Here are my observations on some of the tracks: Dolly Parton lends her voice to the waltz-time ballad called "Tomorrow Is Forever".
As you might expect the mournful pedal- steel guitar makes an appearance and Parton's unmistakable tones harmonise the song.
They take the first part of the versesseparately then join together the rest of the time.
The drummer uses brushes and side-stick to keep the gentle feel, Another duet is with Patty Loveless and is called "You're The Kind Of Trouble".
It's a mid-tempo rocker with Lovelessharmonising the entire song verses and choruses with Burke.
Instrumentation includes a gentle drum sound, pedal-steel,Fender Rhodes keyboard with some insistent gospel-style backing vocals.
It's a rocker but with a soft production and sound.
It's catchy too.
"Ain't Got You" is a cheerful 2-step foot-stomp with violin and slide acoustic guitar playing the main theme in unison.
It'sgot funny lyrics and right at the end of its spirited performance Burke declares "You'all done went hog-crazy here" to thesound of much laughter from the studio musicians.
They must have had good fun laying that track down.
The whimsical "We're Gonna Hold On" is another 2-step with Emmylou Harris helping out on harmonies.
There is a live versionyou can find on YouTube.
Burke sounds comfortable in his range on this track but Emmylou sounds best for me when she goes alittle higher in her voice range and gives a little more urgency to her vocal sound.
Burke sounds more like a soul singer on "Valley of Tears".
The sound has less of the traditional country instrumentation and so the mood of the song allows Burke to lean more toward his more soulful roots.
This version features a nice little solo on guitar that sounds like a mandolin but is in fact a standard 6-string towards the top of the fretboard.
The duet with Patty Griffin "Up To The Mountain" is a very slow atmospheric song and shows off the vibrato in Griffin'svoice.
She's only really singing oohs in the background, but it adds a sweet emotional quality to the song.
Altogether Solomon Burke's soul/country album "Nashville" is a surprisingly successful fusion of the 2 styles.
If thesesongs were sung by a run-of-the-mill country singer I don't think they would offer anything new musically; but with his soulinfluence Burke has in effect created a new genre and so the recording definitely has something original to offer.