CD - Chris Farlowe: Hotel Eingang

The Primer's last exposure to Farlowe was the excellent 2003 release "Farlowe That", which was characterised by great song choices, fairly lush production values and stellar accompaniment in the shape of Van Morrison.

"Eingang" is a significant departure from Farlowe That. It's a band orientated album, with much simpler production values - still a Van Morrison link though, with sometime Van band member Sarah Jory appearing here on pedal steel guitar.

The song selection on Eingang is also pretty sound - the Primer could have done without 'It Should Have Been Me' - after Ray Charles, no other attempt is truly going to cut it, this one included. Ignore that one though, and songs by Snooks Eaglin, Boz Scaggs, Robert Cray and Farlowe himself add up to a consistent and varied release. Farlowe's voice is still exceptionally strong and let's not forget this guy was having his major commercial successes in the sixties.

Straight ahead rock, blues, R&B and country are all present and correct but, as usual, Farlowe excels with the ballad choices. Even when the lyric might be a little hackneyed, Chris pulls it off through the power of both voice and personality - 'Don't Wanna Love You Anymore' and Cray's 'Baby's Arms' are excellent versions of great songs.   

I wonder if Chris Farlowe might well be one of the most under-appreciated vocalist in popular music - he has a uniquely muscular but agile approach to what he sings and both this and Farlowe That deserve investigation. This CD is clearly not going to re-establish him as a star (it's probably too late for that) but it should appeal to most blues and R&B fans and to those who have continued to follow his career from the 60s onwards. He's still touring and is definitely worth seeing live.

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