Aaron Neville

You can not argue with that voice! That range. That tone. He's amazing. However, what you can argue with is a solo career that's made up almost entirely of various collections of standards. The best of these might be 2005's Bring it On Home...The Soul Classics, which is exactly what it sounds like. The worst may be Nature Boy, subtitled The Standards Album, none of which are necessary; it sounds like a band of nobodies playing nothing, but maybe I just don't want to hear such a great voice wasted on watered down cocktail-hour music. The doo-wop theme on My True Story is better; the album is produced by Don Was and Keith Richards, and features Benmont Tench on some nice organ. Although the repetition of some of the same songs gets tedious, his various Christmas and gospel collections are actually a welcome pep-up  from the rest of the mercilessly mellow catalog. Grandmothers in New Orleans need something to listen to after all; he did perform on The Young and The Restless to promote his soul covers album.

It all starts way back with his debut single from 1966; "Over You" is spooky and fun-rockin' R&B hit. It's largely unlike most anything else that he does as a solo performer. His second single "Tell It Like It is" is more like the smoothness that defines his career - it hits big, topping the R&B charts for five weeks in 1967 with some crossover pop success too. (Heart covered it in 1981).

Then he's in The Neville Brothers...

Apparently he and some brothers back up Jimmy Buffett on an album, but we won't hold that against them (having not heard it yet). Many of the Aaron Neville songs that have seeped into the collective pop culture conscious are likely to come from his 1989 duet album with Linda Ronstadt. Although he co-sings every song, it's her album not his, which is why I didn't even listen to it. A few years later he's riding his peak and releases the album with "Everybody Plays the Fool" - one of the many covers on that album.

His most recent album, 2016's Apache, is actually fantastic - arguably his best! And the man is 75! It's all original songs, and that helps. Good songs too. Working with younger jammy bands Lettuce and Soulive, probably helped. The band sounds much fuller, deeper, and somehow even more authentic than some of his standards work. Great horn arrangements throughout too. It's a really diverse and fulfilling album, especially in the context of an already impressive long career. But don't take my word for it. Take NPR's word ("less like a memoir and more like a manifesto — a declaration of self by an artist who's had time to figure it out").