ALBUM: Brook Benton, ‘Rainy Night in Georgia: The Complete Reprise & Cotillion Singles A’s & B’s’
When Brook Benton emerged in the late ‘50s as an earthier Nat-King-Cole type, he had already spent years behind the scenes polishing his act. Under his birth name, Benjamin Peay, he worked as a songwriter and producer, collaborating on such hits as Clyde McPhatter’s “A Lover’s Question” and Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “I’ll Take Care of You,” as well as performing with various gospel and R&B vocal groups.
By the time he finally broke through with his #3 pop hit “It’s Just a Matter of Time” in 1959, he had honed his relaxed sophisticate persona, exemplified by his lush baritone tinged with a hint of rueful humor.
Benton was a fixture of the pop charts for the next several years, whether with romantic odes like “Endlessly” and “So Many Ways”; saucy duets with Dinah Washington on “Baby (You’ve Got What It Takes)” and “A Rockin’ Good Way (To Mess Around and Fall In Love)“; and jazzed-up folk tunes like “The Boll Weevil Song,” which climbed to #2 on both the pop and R&B charts in 1961, becoming his biggest hit.
His signature song, however, was recorded almost a decade later, after his career had lain fallow for several years. This and Benton’s other late ’60s/early ’70s comeback recordings are collected on the new compilation named after that song, Rainy Night in Georgia: The Complete Reprise & Cotillion Singles A’s & B’s, recently released on a double-CD set by Real Gone Music.
Like many of his contemporaries, Benton’s career had begun to lag by the mid ’60s, his brand of mature elegance pushed aside by the growing predominance of youth culture. After Frank Sinatra mounted a comeback with hits like “Strangers in the Night” and “That’s Life,” however, Benton signed to the Chairman’s own label, Reprise Records, in hopes of similarly resuscitating his career.
The six sides he recorded with Reprise are reminiscent of the light jazz-pop Benton had made his name with almost a decade earlier, only with an extra dose of strings and choral vocals tacked on. These recordings were clearly influenced by Ray Charles’ successful Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music from earlier in the decade, down to the A-side of Benton’s first Reprise single, a remake of Leon Ashley’s #1 country hit “Laura (What’s He Got That I Ain’t Got).”
Benton’s “Laura” was a minor hit in 1967, climbing to #78 in the pop charts. Despite his game performances, however, these Reprise recordings feel ported in from another era. If “You’re the Reason I’m Living,” which had been a hit for Bobby Darin just four years earlier, already felt musty, then Benton’s run-through of pop chestnut “The Glory of Love” is positively antediluvian, with none of the verve that Otis Redding would bring to his 1967 interpretation.
The best of Benton’s Reprise sides is the relatively restrained “Weakness in a Man,” but even that was better served by Waylon Jennings’s fresher, more straightforward version released the same year.
After three singles at Reprise, Benton defected to Cotillion Records in 1968, a newly formed subsidiary of Atlantic. There, the singer teamed with up-and-coming producer Arif Mardin, fresh off arranging Aretha Franklin’s breakthrough album I Never Love a Man the Way That I Love You.
Mardin immediately updated Benton’s sound, moving from the drippy strings of a bygone era to the sleeker, more modern style of easy listening. Mardin gave Benton’s first Cotillion single, Leiber and Stoller’s “Do Your Own Thing,” a Bacharach-ian fleetness; fittingly, its B-side was an elegant version of Bacharach and David’s “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself.”
“Do Your Own Thing” brought Benton into the late ’60s, but its follow-up, “Touch ‘Em With Love,” shaped his latter-day career. If Reprise had one good idea about what to do with Benton, it was to give the native South Carolinian some country songs to sing.
Penned by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins, the duo who also wrote “Son of a Preacher Man,” “Touch ’Em With Love” combines country, soul, and rock into a stew that is at once brand new for Benton and a natural fit. (The song is best-known as the title track of a 1969 album by Bobbie Gentry, who worked in a similar milieu.)
“Touch ’Em With Love” wasn’t a hit, but Benton didn’t have to wait before he found a song that would put him back in the spotlight. Written by Tony Joe White, who had just earned a surprise Top 10 hit of his own with “Polk Salad Annie,” “Rainy Night in Georgia” is one of the definitive country-soul singles.
Benton’s interpretation — melancholic without being sappy — was a wide-ranging hit, becoming an R&B #1, climbing to #4 on the Hot 100, and peaking at #2 on the easy-listening chart. After years in the wilderness, Benton had found his defining success.
Benton’s following Cotillion singles alternated between the country-soul of “Rainy Night and Georgia” and more traditional adult contemporary with a soulful spin. (His version of “My Way” is probably the most tolerable one that exists.)
Benton’s vocals had developed a bit of grit since his early days, but he still retained his sophisticated pop phrasing, giving his records a distinctive, neither-here-nor-there quality. Paired with legendary studio band the Dixie Flyers, Benton’s recordings of Joe South’s “Don’t It Make You Want to Go Home,” Don Covay’s “Shoes,” and Bert Berns’s “A Little Bit of Soap” (the last backed by Cold Grits, his “Rainy Night in Georgia” band) are nearly as strong as his signature hit.
Perhaps freshly inspired, Benton also recorded some of his own compositions for the first time in years. “Where Do I Go From Here” and “If You Think God is Dead” are solid B-sides, but “Let Me Fix It” is a standout soul workout in which Benton steamily duets with Cissy Houston of the Sweet Inspirations.
Nearly all of Benton’s material in this era is worth hearing, from his return to gospel with “Take a Look at Your Hands” and “Heaven Help Us All,” to his sly contribution to the Christmas canon, “Soul Santa.” Even a couple of skippable tracks — the clunky “Woman Without Love” and the cloying “A Black Child Can’t Smile” — can’t interfere with the overall quality of these recordings.
“Shoes,” released in 1971, would be Benton’s last charting single; by 1973, he’d leave Cotillion for MGM Records. Without a guiding hand like Mardin, however, Benton floundered through the rest of the decade, including an ill-conceived stab at disco.
Rainy Night in Georgia: The Complete Reprise & Cotillion Singles A’s & B’s represents his last great creative flourishing, one that’s rarely been compiled before. Apart from the title track, this era of Benton’s career may be less widely familiar than his late-‘50s/early-‘60s heyday, but it’s a worthwhile listen for anyone interested in the singer’s polished, elegant take on country soul.
Brook Benton’s Rainy Night in Georgia: The Complete Reprise & Cotillion Singles A’s & B’s is now available from Real Gone Music.
