Search - Terry Callier :: What Colour Is Love

The Lady On The Cover

S. Howard | Orange,N.J | 11/21/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One day about thirty-five years ago.I was browsing in a record store.Not looking for anything in particular.When my eyes hit upon this ablum cover.Partly because I guess the woman was naked (Yeah).Now I must admit I did not know a thing about Terry Callier,and had never heard of him.But the album caught my attention so I brought it. Once I got the album home I begin to wonder what the woman was thinking about.She had the most thoughtful look on her face.As she sat in the chair in a almost fetal position with a cigarette in her hand.Was she thinking about a current lover or an ex-lover or maybe a love that will never be.As Terry Callier says"A heart cannot live if a heart isn't giving".And that statement really does apply to love,and the lady on the cover.What Color Is Love a 1972 effort by Terry Callier is one of the best albums I've ever brought.Terry Callier is not only a great singer but he is also a great songwriter.He wrote songs in the 70s for the Dells on the old Cadet label.On What Color Is Love Terry Callier with the help of a few friends like his long time songwriting partner Larry Wade and arranger,producer Charles Stepney have put together a classic album.The musical journey begins with Dancing Girl-With a great arrangment,the song takes you on a dream trip that ends with a hard look at drugs and prostition.The title track What Color Is Love-Is not a love song,but a song about love.The song tells us that love can be wrong or right,can be as simple as black and white but it can also be complicated it can be strong,deep,giving,rise to great heights,can be hard to find and when it's over it can leave you with feelings that may last a lifetime."Yougoin"Miss Your Candyman-Is like a folk and blues song.And maybe the best arrangment on the album.Just As Long As We're In Love-I love the words to this song and the female background voices sound great.HotsingMee(A Song Of The Sun)-Another good song dealing with war and it's aftermath and the human conition.I'd Rather Be With You-I really love this song.A great love song,and I just love the harmonica playing in the background.You Don't Care-Is a little instrumental and a little vocal,and a very pleasurable tune.With this song the musical journey comes to an end.I highly recommend this album. '"

Folk-soul-R&B-jazz masterpiece, sadly unheard-of in USA

Elliot Knapp | Seattle, Washington United States | 05/18/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Thanks to the wonderful institution of Amazon's "Listmania" and my relentless search thereof for great 'lost' 60's and 70's rock, folk, country and soul music, I was recently helped into discovering this unique genre-bender of a classic album from Terry Callier. After researching him a bit, I found that this is one of his three most highly-recommended 70's albums, sandwiched in between 1972's Occasional Rain and 1975's I Just Can't Help Myself. Since What Color Is Love was the first I heard about, and has such a classic, evocative cover (yeah, occasionally you CAN judge an album by its cover art), I decided to pick it up first. What a great purchase--I can confidently recommend this album to fans of jazzier folk, more "out-there" folk that is influenced by more wide ranging musical styles than just American roots and blues, as well as more adventurous fans of R&B legends like Marvin Gaye and Al Green who don't mind if their soul is cut with a bit of folk and jazz.



The album opens with the spacey "Dancing Girl," in which Callier displays his novel combination of acoustic folk guitar with his soulful, yearning voice that seems to evoke all the best characteristics of 60's/70's black soul, but at the same time transcend the structural trappings of the genre. On first listen, I was immediately impressed with Callier's lyrics--meaningful, mysterious, and thought provoking, on "Dancing Girl," he lays out some mind-blowers ("You'll surely come to harm/With that needle all up in your arm") and some lines that, combined with the power of the music, transcend the words alone ("Anyway you want to do/Boogie, bop, or boogaloo" is priceless in Callier's husky whisper). The song's structure is pretty progressive, with multiple movements and clocking in at over 9 glorious minutes.



"What Color is Love" and "Just As Long As We're In Love" showcase Callier's strengths as an interpretive singer and his gentle side, backed by female background singers, horns and strings in a delightful blend. "You Goin' To Miss Your Candyman" is one of the album's greatest tracks, with the funkiest soul bassline since Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)," and showcasing Callier's uniformly tight, gnarly rhythm section, which often includes some sick bass lines and bongo drums. "Ho Tsing Mee" is a contemplative protest song, deceptively gentle at the beginning, building to a barnstorming climax with Callier's plaintive scat/howl elevating the song to great heights. "I'd Rather Be With You" is the album's closest thing to a typical "on the road" folksong, and the closer is a groovy Bacharach-like blend of horns and background singers repeating "You Don't Care" for a tranquil, meditative end to a real trip of an album.



Terry Callier is one of the greatest relatively unknown artists I've discovered lately, and I can't help but recommend him as highly as I can. I'm looking forward to checking out his other classics, and maybe some of his newer music, which I heard is also excellent. Take a chance--I think you'll find Callier rewarding."