Mary Love, described by Ace Records as ‘the foundation of our Kent label’, died in 2013. She was fundamentally a soul singer with a gospel-inflected message, and her recordings moved from classic 1960s soul to a more recent, subtly funky 1980s approach that kept the fire alive. Hers was an emotive voice, one that sang of her subject with real fire in her belly, but which also matured beautifully. My own introduction to her was by way of the unusual but very moving ‘Come Out of the Sandbox’, but her earlier recordings, headed by ‘Lay This Burden Down’, ‘Satisfied Feeling’ and ‘You Turned My Bitter Into Sweet’, match anything else released by soul artists in the 1960s. The later stuff is gentler but finds an attractive roughness in her voice, the sign of an artist maturing gracefully. Still not as well-known as she should be, Mary Love gets her dues here in a beautifully sourced and compiled piece of work.
5 out of 5
Reviewed By Ben Hogwood
