Strike up another hit for the oldies on this edition of Kat’s Karavan. Released in 1965 by Joe Haywood, who moonlighted as a singer when he wasn’t acting as a drummer for various bands in South Carolina, it’s another example of the kind of soul ballad which John Peel seemed to favour when programming his shows: it’s intimate, sparsely arranged, deeply felt in its performance by Haywood and it also has spiritual overtones. At face value, it’s a love song, but the lyrics could also convey the sense of a sinner ready to embrace religion with the fervour of the newly converted. The track, which is credited to producer/impresario, Bobby Robinson, but could be written by Haywood himself, hit wider attention when Percy Sledge put out his version as a follow-up to When a Man Loves a Woman in 1966. Having just listened to Sledge’s version for the first time, I prefer the rawness of Haywood’s version.
Moonlighting as a singer isn’t really a fair way to sum up Haywood’s talents. His discography covered 10 singles between 1965 and 1972, but as was the way of it, many of those were released on smaller independent labels. It took until 2016 for a Polish label, Play Back to compile Haywood’s recordings into a compilation album. There is a lot of mystery around who Joe Haywood was, a man who was once described as being able to sing Sam Cooke songs better than Sam Cooke. In 2006, ten years after Haywood’s death, the website Soul Detective took a trawl through his back catalogue and attempted to find out more about him. Highly recommended.
Video courtesy of EvaDStruc.
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