Don Bryant - You Make Me Feel (2020) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

If you turn your ears a certain way, You Make Me Feel by soul great Don Bryant can be heard as a love letter to his wife of 50 years, Ann Peebles. That killer horn riff that kicks off the album? Think of it as a fanfare preceding the reading of a royal decree; or maybe it’s a funky version of a wedding march. Written by Bryant and producer Scott Bomar, “Your Love Is to Blame” has the chorus of a good blues song: "Nothing in my life is the same/Your love is to blame.” But here, “blame” gets a halo. “I tried to turn this one around,” Don says with a slight grin. Then he explains, “Your love is to blame because we are together!”

In the category of soul, few artists match the intensity and fervor that performer Don Bryant does, both when behind the mic and when putting pen to paper. An auteur of love, pain, regret and exuberance, Bryant’s career as a songwriter and an electrifying personality onstage has one thread: deep, sincere feeling. “There might be some sad stories, there might be some happy stories, might be some things you might not want to remember, but it'll bring to mind some situations,” Bryant says of his songwriting. “And, that's what I've been always trying to push and reach somebody that's been through what I had.” The interim between Don Bryant’s debut LP “Precious Soul” in 1969 and his proper follow-up “Don’t Give Up on Love” in 2017 might seem unusually long to most music fans. But that doesn’t mean the 79-year-old singer wasn’t at work for the nearly 45 years on the sidelines of the soul scene. “I couldn’t stop writing,” Bryant says. “Because that was my joy. It was the thing I loved to do.” Penning songs for others, he garnered success with hundreds of compositions performed by contemporaries such as Buddy Ace, Otis Clay and his wife Ann Peebles. And when producer Scott Bomar sent former Hi Rhythm Section drummer Howard Grimes to ask Bryant if he’d be interested in returning to life as a recording artist, Bryant had folders stacked high at home of unused original material. “That was the beginning of getting back off deep into it, you know. And now that I got that feeling back, this is where I want to be,” Bryant says. “I'm thankful to be back here, man. This is a part of me. This is the biggest part of me.”

TRACKLIST

1. Don Bryant - Your Love is to Blame
2. Don Bryant - 99 Pounds
3. Don Bryant - Is It Over
4. Don Bryant - I Die a Little Each Day
5. Don Bryant - Don't Turn Your Back on Me
6. Don Bryant - Your Love is Too Late
7. Don Bryant - I'll Go Crazy
8. Don Bryant - Cracked up over You
9. Don Bryant - A Woman's Touch
10. Don Bryant - Walk All over God's Heaven



Thanks to the Original customer.