Consider James Carr.
The son of a preacher from Mississippi, he cut his teeth singing in various gospel groups throughout his teens hoping for a secular breakthrough. In 1963 he was turned down by the mighty Stax records. In late 1964, however, he was picked up by the small Memphis imprint Goldwax. He spent the next few years attempting to find the stylistic match to his richly expressive baritone, trying on everything from Motown-ish pop to soul-blues.
In 1966 he found his voice with the exquisite single You Got My Mind Messed Up. This single and the album (of the same name) that followed is, to my ears, the purest distillation of raw southern soul that has ever been recorded. James Carr might not be a household name like Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin but on terms of pure emotion I believe he outranks them both.
Just listen to The Dark End of the Street:
Later covered by everyone from Clarence Carter to Linda Ronstadt to the Flying Burrito Brothers to Ms. Franklin herself, Carr's original still stands as the definitive version. It is a song of utter darkness and despair, and he sings as a man possessed, as though his very life depended on it. And, in a way, it did.
For James Carr's demons were very real. After recording You Got My Mind Messed Up he fell into heavy drug and alcohol abuse. A subsequent tour was derailed due to James frequently wandering offstage and getting lost. Upon returning to Memphis he was diagnosed with manic depression. Sessions for his second album, A Man Needs a Woman, were disastrous at best. During his last recording session for Goldwax James sat at the microphone staring off into space and singing only the refrain from the Bee Gee's To Love Somebody. Goldwax went bankrupt in 1969, and James quietly drifted into obscurity. He spent time in various mental institutions for much of the 70's and 80's, barely conscious of the world around him.
So why spend so much time (as I have) with an album that came from a place this dark, this desolate? For me it is simply a matter of solidarity. As the long nights drag on during this time of the year and much of my world is lived in darknesses both real and imaginary I am comforted by the fact that these streets have been walked on before, by shoes much more troubled than mine. And perhaps this was James' ultimate purpose, his gift to the world: To be so in touch with his own emotions as to offer up a crystallized distillation of melancholy to help others navigate their own dark journeys by. For this reason I do not consider this sad music, to me it is triumphant.
Oh, and by the way, this story does have a silver lining. With medication, James' condition steadily improved to the point where in 1991 he cut an album for a revived Goldwax. The record, Take Me to the Limit, received mixed reviews, although its very existence was an achievement in and of itself. A tour followed:
In 1994 he released another album entitled Soul Survivor. Unfortunately, Carr was soon diagnosed with lung cancer, and spent several years battling the disease before finally succumbing on January 7th, 2001.
For those of you wanting a soundtrack to these short days and long, long nights of the soul I humbly offer you James Carr's unqualified masterpiece. I'll see you on the other side of the solstice.
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