Bettye Swann – This Old Heart Of Mine b/w Either You Love Me Or You Leave Me – Soul4Real 7″

Bettye Swann’s heart has been broken lots of times; we know this because we’ve heard it break on many of her records. Bettye’s voice captures these moments perfectly, her delivery is soft and sensitive, giving it a realness that you can almost touch, be it on her uptempo Money label dancers from the 1960s or on laid back mid-tempo allnighter floorfillers from the 1970s like the massive’n’classic ‘Kiss My Love Goodbye’.

Her unique most exquisite mix of warmth and sweetness inside her voice wraps around the vulnerable sound, whilst a gentle quiver in her throat amplifies the pain of heartbreak in decent way.

It’s a wonderful, ‘gifted’, individual and potent combination that has been felt by Soul music lovers all over the world seperating the ‘cream’ from the ‘crop’.

These two tracks were shamefully left discarded in a Nashville tape vault for over 40 years.

Both sides showcase the magnificence of Bettye’s vocals, but also highlight the fact that, despite a catalogue of consistently brilliant released recordings, she achieved only moderate success and was somehow denied the superstar status that such a voice should command.

And then we have her interpretation of the worldwide chart/radio Motown Soul smash ‘This Old Heart Of Mine’ suddenly adding a new dimension to this great song making you feel the ‘essence’ of Soul music through the helping of the often heard somehow familiar but common uptempo version. This is a record to make you happy at home whishing you not to have been dissapointed the way like it’s transported or told in the song.

But ‘Pain’ or ‘Hurt’ can feel good aswell, that’s the thing with Soul music, always giving ‘hope’ at the end of the tunnel, maybe being the reason why even sad songs can lift you up and manage to open your heart and make you feel real emotions, something life is actually about and often desperately missing nowadays.

And truly said by our Soul mate Mr. Taylor from Nottingham who wrote the liner notes for this masterpiece which we adopted: ‘My heart breaks for anyone who has never had the joy of hearing her sing.’

So here’s your chance to take Betty’s hand like she says in the beginning of the record, and take her invitation to feel the pureness of Soul music through her touching vocal making it easier through the familliar lyrics of this popular tune.

This is a record to listen to, not just another dancer, if your heart is open to understand, we gladly give you one of the limited vinyl 7″ copies released by those really soulful guys from the North of Spain, maybe that’s why their label is called ‘Soul4Real’.