Willie Hightower – Self-Titled

The artistry of Tony Bennett was never approached by contemporaries such as Tony Martin or Al Martino, and George Morgan was no Eddy Arnold. Still, the genius-deprived among us — virtually everyone who’s ever raised a voice, brush or pen — can nonetheless create powerful, enduring art. We occasionally even work hard enough, or get lucky enough, to create art that is genuinely great. Or that at least looks great in the right light.

Chitlin’ circuit vet Willie Hightower is a case in point. During the late 1960s and early ’70s, he cut mostly little-heard sides for big-time record companies and small regional labels. An Alabama native, Hightower was an admittedly derivative singer and little-known. He cracked the Billboard R&B chart exactly twice, his artistic and commercial high point a stinging, danceable version of Joe South’s “Walk A Mile In My Shoes” that crawled to #26 in 1970.

Still, Hightower is worth your time. While he borrowed heavily from superior artists — “It’s Too Late” is a Bobby Bland take-off, while “Poor Man” and “Back Road Into Town” are pure Clarence Carter in his “Patches” mode — his borrowings were always expert, in no small part because he usually recorded at Muscle Shoals with producer Rick Hall.

Hightower’s main man was Sam Cooke, and he often sounds eerily like his hero, especially when covering “You Send Me” or when performing “Time Brought About A Change”, his self-penned sequel to Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”. Hightower is mostly interested in the rasping, rough-hewn, gospel-inspired Cooke, which means he provides a glimpse of what the late singer might’ve sounded like if he’d lived long enough to be influenced by the Stax and Atlantic artists he inspired. Granted, Willie Hightower is no substitute for Sam Cooke, but he’s Willie Hightower, and that’s plenty good enough.

Note: This Hightower set is the third volume in Astralwerks’ excellent forgotten-soul-singer series, which has previously included sets devoted to Bettye Swann and Candi Staton. Next up, how’s about a disc of Swamp Dogg’s finest work, or a collection of Knight Brothers’ sides, or…well, I just hope these collections keep coming.