Duffy Power - Duffy Power (Reissue 2007)

Born: 9th September 1941 Fulham, South West London, UK
Died: 19th February 2014
British blue-eyed r&b singer and guitarist. He started his career in the late 1950s playing rock and roll under the wing of Larry Parnes. His biggest successes came in the 1960 when he moved to r&b and blues. Power also worked as a session musician and played on the soundtrack of the 1969 film, The Italian Job.

For all the many recordings of Duffy Power in the 1960s and the '70s that eventually found release, his 1973 album on the GSF label (sometimes reported to have come out in 1972) was the only full-length Power LP that came out shortly after the material it contained was recorded. Confusingly, another album titled Duffy Power came out around the same time on the Spark label, though that LP contained tracks recorded in the late '60s. The Duffy Power album on the GSF label was entirely different, and has received relatively little attention even among his cult followers, in part because so much other Power material was reissued on CD prior to the record finally coming out in the compact disc format in 2007. While the tracks on the GSF album aren't among the best Power cuts, they prove to be surprisingly and satisfyingly worthwhile, finding his trademark eclectic folk-rock-blues blends intact on a set of entirely self-composed songs. Though not as sparsely produced as some of his more effective '60s efforts, or as cracking with R&B excitement as some other of those '60s efforts, it's a pretty gutsy set, though imbued with the likably humble humanity Power invested with almost everything he laid down. He takes on some pretty big subjects -- religion, most notably, on "Song About Jesus" and "Glimpses of God" -- along with his more standard vulnerable, sweetly edgy romantic ruminations ("Holiday" is close to torch song jazz-blues). Generally Power does sound better the folkier he gets, and the odder, jazzier tunes he uses (as on "Holiday," "The River," and "Love Is Shelter," all of which use effectively dramatic light orchestration) are the highlights. The more rock-oriented tracks, while OK, have a more generic early-'70s British rock feel.