Donny Hathaway’s Live, recorded in concert in 1971, offers eight masterclasses in soul and groove – even more than fifty years on. The album itself was first released in 1972. It opens with »What’s Goin’ On«, one of the genre’s defining songs. Where Marvin Gaye turned it into an introspective rhythmic monument, Hathaway transforms it into an open song in which melody and voice take the lead.
More generally, Live shows what sets Hathaway apart from other artists in the genre: he pours everything, truly everything, of his soul into these songs and carries his band with him. »The Ghetto« and »Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)« both run well beyond the ten-minute mark, yet neither monotony nor convention ever take hold. Everything on this album submits to the energy driving it forward. Even the audience joins in, unleashing in »You’ve Got A Friend« something that reconciles soul and gospel – perhaps the most beautiful choir ever captured on a live album.
Over all of this, Hathaway sings in a way only he could. While the guitar bleeds in »We’re Still Friends«, he murmurs his suffering over love and loss. The certainty with which Hathaway inhabits every note and places feeling into every word remains unique to this day, making this album more than a historical document. Nothing remains to be done but to sit down and listen. A milestone for all time.
