Rolling
Stone
January 2003
He
was never a star but producer and songwriter Bert Berns
compiled a songbook that contains some of the great deep-soul
hits of the Sixties. Born in the Bronx to Russian-immigrant
parents, Berns helped refine the soul of everyone from Van
Morrison to Ben E. King before dying of heart failure at
age thirty-eight in 1967.
This
ten-song collection -- assembled and released by Universal
Music Group macher Doug Morris -- reveals a songwriter who
could communicate real pain and longing but still deliver
a pop hook, searingly on tracks such as Garnet Mimms' "Cry
Baby" and Erma Franklin's "Piece of My
Heart." Songs like Freddie Scott's "Are
You Lonely for Me Baby" and Hoagy Lands' "Baby
Come On Home" are guaranteed to put a tear in your
beer; Berns also wrote some all-time party standards, including
Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love"
and the Isley Brothers' "Twist and Shout."
Consider the Berns songs that aren't on this disc -- "Hang
On Sloopy," "Here Comes the Night"
and more -- and you have a bona fide overlooked soul master.
-
Rolling
Stone, January 2003
