Some would argue that this album (reissued on CD in 1995) isn't really representative of Jesse Belvin's sound, coming at the very end of his life so that he couldn't follow it up and displaying a final mix that he never got to hear. But Mr. Easy is about as fine an album as any R&B singer ever cut in search of a mainstream audience and ought to be in every '50s vocal collection. Anyone who owns even one Sam Cooke CD should make it his or her business to buy it, and nobody who enjoys Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, or Billy Eckstine would be doing wrong, either. No, his voice wasn't as rich as Sinatra or Cooke's at either's best, but he knew how to use it, and he went further with this material than anybody had a right to, straddling the worlds of soul and popular music magnificently. By itself, the closing number, "The Very Thought of You," is worth the price of the disc, and isn't much easier to listen to than Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come," even if it is a very different kind of song. (European import.)
© Bruce Eder /TiVo