THE PULSE! LONE WOLF INDIE 100
A hundred first-rate, can't-miss indie records
(Orleans) This New Orleans tugboat captain sings like Al Green. Charles Merrick's sweet comeback album contains the kind of radiant soul-music testifying that changes listeners into evangelical zealots.
Originally published in Pulse! (September 1997), pg. 43
Cool tunes: Born for You, Rockie Charles (Orleans): Imagine a singer straight of the Al Green school of melismatic soul, who scores a couple of regional (New Orleans) hits in the late '60s, like "The President of Soul (pts. 1 & 2)," then disappears from the music biz to pilot a tugboat on the Mississippi. Then he resurfaces at age 54 with an album that blows Green's most recent outing right out of the water. Bended-knee plaints like the title cut, "I Need Your Love So Bad, I'm About to Loose My Mind" and "Oh My Darling, Look What You're Doing to Me" will make any ardent soul-o-phile radiantly tumescent. Ergo, brothers'n'sisters, this is some fine shit here.
---Jackson Griffith
Excerpt from 'appreciating pure product,' originally published in Pulse! (July 1997), pg. 18