Mercy!

Album review

In late 1964, Don Covay, then fronting Don Covay & the Goodtimers, scored a Top 40 hit with "Mercy Mercy." He and the record label decided to capitalize on the unexpected crossover success with this LP, one of the finest soul albums ever to come out of Atlantic Records. Given their first chance to stretch out on ten new tracks at once, Covay and his group (including keyboard man and songwriting collaborator Horace Ott) rose to the occasion and delivered an LP's worth of cuts that were as good as the single they were tied to. In addition to the hit, a gospel-blues amalgam of soulful vocals and bluesy lead guitar (which may be better known today to many listeners by way of the Rolling Stones' version from Out of Our Heads), Mercy! is filled with tracks that are never less than good and mostly a lot better than that: "I'll Be Satisfied," with its memorably passionate singing and crunchy guitar; the thumping dance number "Come on In" -- which, true to its origins, features a compendium of dance step references and nods to then-current hit songs; the gorgeous, falsetto-dominated "Can't Stay Away"; and the mournful, wrenchingly beautiful "You're Good for Me," which is too great a performance by Covay and all concerned to be buried at the end of an LP side. "Can't Fight It Baby" is a lost hit, a spellbindingly beautiful, exciting, and memorable cut that ought to have been a single, if not for Covay and company, then in a version by the 1965-vintage Drifters, who were probably working just down the hall in another studio when this side was cut.
Side two is just as good as side one and, indeed, starts out as virtually a repeat of the latter, with "Take This Hurt Off Me" replicating "Mercy Mercy," though it has an unexpected crop of lost singles -- Covay's soaring "Come See About Me," which he'd previously recorded early in 1964 for the Landa label, with its epic-scale lyrical passion, dominates the side, though "You Must Believe Me" and "Daddy Loves Baby" could also certainly have rated a place on a 45-rpm platter. Given the currents rippling out to the Rolling Stones as well as serious soul fans, this record is obviously capable of striking resonant chords 40 years later, but fans of Jimi Hendrix may also want to make special note of Mercy! -- Hendrix played on a number of Covay sessions, and although the records are sketchy, was likely one of the guitarists on "Mercy Mercy" and possibly one or two other songs (the other guitarists present on the album, for the record, were Bob Bushnell, Wally Richardson, Harry Jensen, and Ronald Miller). It's no more significant in relation to Hendrix's later sound than the guitarist's work with the Isley Brothers from the same period, but it is great music that he happened to play on.

© Bruce Eder /TiVo