Rosetta Hightower

In a happenstance guaranteed to foul up discographies for eternity, in 1971 Rosetta Hightower released two different LPs for two different British labels with very similar titles. One, for Rediffusion, consisted exclusively of cover versions of soul hits, and was titled Rosetta Hightower. The other, for CBS, put the emphasis very much on material specifically supplied to Hightower, and was simply titled Hightower. (Adding to the confusion, both albums were reissued on CD, within a couple years of each other, by the same British label, with different bonus tracks added to each.) Hightower -- the subject of this review -- was very much the superior recording, and not just because it's not a relative all-covers throwaway. The backup musicians are of an all-star caliber, including Jim Price, Bobby Keys, Henry McCullough, Harold McNair, and ex-Blind Faith/Family man Rick Grech. What's more, Grech and McNair teamed up to write four of the LP's songs. While it might be more a soul record than anything else, there are also far more rock and folk influences at work than there are on most early-'70s soul LPs; Doris Troy's Apple recordings might serve as a rough comparison, though there's more pop and folk at work on Hightower. It's not a great album, but it's a satisfying one, especially when it gets into almost folky singer/songwriter territory on "Michael" on "What a Day It's Been," two of the four numbers contributed by Kenny Craddock and Colin Gibson. The 2008 CD reissue on RPM adds all eight tracks from her four non-LP 1969-1971 singles as bonus tracks. All of these additions are considerably more pop-soul in orientation -- including material penned by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Tony Macaulay and Geoff Stephens, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and Chip Taylor and Al Gorgoni, as well as a couple by Hightower herself -- though not in a bad way, making for decent soul that managed the feat of sounding commercial without selling well. Another oddity among the non-LP cuts is "Persuader," which sounds like the theme song for a hit thriller movie that never was, co-written by none other than Dudley Moore. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide