Southern Soul Get Down!

Jimmy Gresham - Chasin' a Rainbow

Today we go back to the new Soul Resurrection comp for some more soul from the Playground Studios. Although yesterday's post pointed in a completely different direction than what you would think would be the product of a southern soul studio, Playground produced lots of nice, deep-fried southern soul, even at a time when tracks like the Reuben Howell recording from yesterday's post had better chances of success. Today's selection is a great example of Playground's southern side.

Jimmy Gresham's gruff delivery is very reminiscent of O.C. Tolbert, and on the rocking "Chasin' a Rainbow" he channels a little Otis Redding also. Gresham's passionate delivery of the song's two verses (which are sung twice) nicely captures the desperation of the lyrics, including the somewhat wordy "please don't let me just be chasing a rainbow" phrase that closes out the second and fourth verse and provides the song's coda.