Criticising a charity album is a bit like stealing a stack of magazines from a Big Issue vendor.
Thankfully, then, moral guilt is avoided because there are plenty of good things to say about this release, whose profits go to Sir Tom Hunter’s Cash For Kids charity.
Tasked by the Scottish philanthropist to create a set list of soul classics, Jim Diamond has settled on a dozen songs from the Motown, Stax and Atlantic catalogues (Spanish Harlem, Stand By Me, Chain Gang) that he remembers from the Glasgow pub and club circuit back in the day.
With the likes of Wet Wet Wet’s Tommy Cunningham and Hue And Cry’s Greg Kane by the singer’s side, the sound leans closer to the Jools Holland Hootenanny treatment (with an added whiff of 1970s cheese to the backing vocals) than the “been there, lived it” feel of the originals, but there’s a terrific brassy sheen to the horn arrangements and Diamond delivers his own emotional reading of the songs. The mood is celebratory, never worthy.
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