I Can’t Stop

BLUE NOTE 2003, CD £12.50 You Say: “If he couldn’t, why did he(again)?” Alan Lowe, via e-mail Reunited with Willie Mitchell 18 years after their previous work together on gospel albums, I Can’t Stop was a stunning, albeit temporary, return to top form in the secular field. His voice sounds remarkably unchanged from the glories of the early ’70s, and he sings with a freedom, joy, power and determination to connect that gives some idea of the uplift he’d been giving congregations at the Full Gospel Tabernacle church in Memphis. Stand-out track is Rainin’ In My Heart, an astonishing ballad performance of gradually revealed emotion via gospel shrieks, soul shouts and a heart-stopping climax. Not Tonight, a ballad of gentler insistence, is not far behind. Hi stalwarts Teenie and Leroy Hodges drive uptempo tracks that joyfully secularise gospel.