One of Southern Soul's leading luminaries, Willie Clayton still proves to this day that he is a unique, driving force to be reckoned with. A spate of singles on Kirstee during the 1980s first brought him to my attention and the real killer for me was the wonderful “Your Sweetness” in 1987. I was absolutely thrilled when the “Forever” album – amazingly his début album - was released on LP and CD through the excellent Timeless imprint here in the UK courtesy of Mike Ward. Sadly, Timeless no longer exists as a label and I have no idea what Mike is up to these days but I wish Mike would come out of hiding and start issuing albums like this again! As far as I am concerned, this is Willie's best album and with producers Cornell Ward and André Miller no-one should have expected any less. As an aside, Willie actually appeared on British television singing “Special Lady” unplugged – that was really impressive to see. “Your Sweetness” takes pride of place as track one. The brilliance of this song is in it's sheer simplicity, its unbound optimism and the fact that Willie Clayton puts his heart and soul into it. I firmly believe that this could have crossed over big time had mainstream radio championed it. What a tune! As you know from my years and years of banging on, my favourite tunes are the quiet storm tunes – the ones that especially give me goose pimples. “Special Lady” and “Make Me Yours Forever” do this in abundance. The southern yet more inclusive style of Ward and Miller are perfect and stand head and shoulders above the rest of the cuts overseen by Jim Sims which are far more Southern than I personally can handle. Take a listen and if you don't own this album head off to Musicstack and snap up a copy. It's going to be one of those releases that becomes super-rare.
Barry Towler
The Vibe Scribe
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