Lee Fields has put in the hours and the miles. He’s been making records since 1969 – seek out the impossibly groovy ‘Everybody Gonna Give Their Thing Away To Somebody’ – and has worked with everyone from Kool and the Gang to Dr John. Fields took a break to go off selling houses in the decade that taste forgot but gradually returned to singing in the nineties and has been active ever since. Everything he’s released in the interim has been pretty handy - try ‘My World Is Empty Without You’ from 2009 just as an example - and so is this.

“Oi, Oi!” you might think “didn’t I see a movie called ‘It Rains Love’ the last time I was in Amsterdam?” That’s as may be, but Lee is talking about how the love of a good woman makes life worth living. Mind you, if a voice like that tried to convince you the world was flat, you’d probably believe it. ‘Blessed With The Best’ is of a similar bent, a man could have everything in the world, but if he doesn’t have that “sweet love” then he’s at nothing. The song itself boasts some righteous horns, wicked Hammond organ swirls, and a great middle eight. And yet again, he’s testifying about what a blessing his missus is on the deep southern soul of ‘You’re What’s Need In My Life’. What's the answer? 'Love Is The Answer'. Of course.

Best of all is the insistent, blaxploitation-like groove of ‘A Promise Is A Promise’, over which Lee berates his girl (possibly not the current Mrs Fields) for lying to him, but everything here like  ‘Will I Get Off Easy’ and ‘Love Prisoner’ – hey, I definitely say those two movies in Hamburg – just oozes soul. It's the yearning in that lived-in voice that carries the whole enterprise. You might not agree with his assertion that 'God Is Real' - and then again you might, and good luck to you - but there's no doubting that our man means what he says. And that applies to the whole of this record. Hats off and fair play.

https://open.spotify.com/album/1iIcVvI4yb0weQpRyDo1IJ?si=sVLMagilSB61PQnPWjkPtQ