(Southern Soul, Deep Soul) O.V. Wright - The Soul Of O.V. Wright - 1992, MP3 (tracks), VBR 192-320 kbps

O.V. Wright is part of the Pantheon Of 1960s Soul, up there with Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin, and Otis Redding. He's not as well known as them--at least in America--but his songs have been covered by Redding, the Rolling Stones, Robert Cray, and Ann Peebles. Like Burke and Franklin, his vocal style was heavily based in Southern gospel music, passionately balancing the sacred and the secular. Wright fervently implored, pleaded, and howled his tales of love lost, strayed, thwarted, or shattered. "A Nickel and a Nail" is one of the finest distillations of no-way-out desperation ever recorded. Wright affirms his love to the heavens by crying out the dramatically devotional "I'd Rather Be Blind, Crippled and Crazy." The music is prime Memphis rhythm & blues: full of sharp, terse guitar, rich Hammond organ, and gospel-informed background vocals--tight and funky but never slick.