Some sage told us years ago that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and
Overnight Sensational is an album with enough good intentions to choke a horse.
Sam Moore was one of the great men of 1960s soul as half of
Sam & Dave, but like his former partner
Dave Prater (who passed away in 1988) once the duo broke up,
Moore had a hard time getting a solo career off the ground, and his star turned dim in the '70s. There's no arguing that
Sam Moore deserves a second shot at the spotlight, and his voice is still in fine shape, but his wife and manager, Joyce Moore, decided that the best way to relaunch
Sam's career was to create an "event" album around him, with a name producer and a gaggle of guest stars. On
Overnight Sensational, the name producer turns out to be
Randy Jackson, a session musician best known as one of the judges on American Idol, and
Jackson has saddled
Moore with some dubious choices in terms of material and duet partners (many of whom, judging from the credits, weren't even in the same room with
Moore when they recorded their parts). If you ever dreamed of hearing
Sam Moore sing songs made famous by
Milli Vanilli,
Garth Brooks,
Seals & Crofts, and
Conway Twitty, well, this is your lucky day, but while
Moore gives each song his level best, the cheese factor on this album is woefully high. It's true that
Moore has a long, rich tradition of singing with a partner, but
Wynonna Judd,
Paul Rodgers,
Fantasia, and
Zucchero blend with
Moore about as well as oil mixes with water, with
Mariah Carey's wordless melismatic wanderings on "It's Only Make Believe" slinking under the line as the album's low point. Fortunately, however,
Moore, who must have some spiritual tie to New Jersey, does have a track apiece with
Bruce Springsteen and
Jon Bon Jovi, the artists who come off the best by a considerable margin here and consequently save this album's day. ~ Mark Deming