If Ben E King had turned up and simply asked if we were all doing okay out there, as he did not a few times, most of his audience here probably would have gone away quite happy.
Just hearing that voice speak is quite an experience. Hearing it sing involved, first, sitting through rather a long warm-up from his admittedly very able band, which included Glasgow's own Paul Towndrow on tenor saxophone and Ryan Quigley on trumpet. One number would have been fine, two felt like filler material.
Ninety minutes, as scheduled, from the now 73-year-old King might have been expecting too much. He's more given to crooning than soul-singing histrionics and often reworks a song's melody to suit his range these days, giving his sashaying backing singers the top line. On Broadway sounded like more of a chore than a defiant celebration, but the gig itself was a soul'n'rock'n'roll party, with King leading the sing-song with natural charm.
He may not remember which year he recorded certain songs but as he moved from the Drifters era into his disco phase, he and the band sounded in their element, with Towndrow and Quigley firing off superb solos, and his recollection of his 1970s collaboration with the Average White Band brought forth a cool reading of Keeping It To Myself from their Benny & Us album.
What Is Soul, Spanish Harlem... the hits, his own and other people's, kept on coming, and as Stand By Me gave way to a Wilson Pickett medley, the feeling that we were in the presence of a soul legend was gently reinforced.
HHH
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article