Following a busy year that brought five top twenty singles as a recording artist and a number one and two as a writer, Neil Diamond decided to leave Bang Records for greener pastures and artistic freedom. What the world did to deserve this is still unclear but we do know that his first three singles for UNI, the wonderful Chip Taylor production "Brooklyn Roads", the also wonderful but not Chipped "Two-Bit Manchild", and the merely okay "Sunday Sun" got trapped in the bottom half of the Hot 100. The debut album that followed didn't help, saddled with the exploitative (and unintentionally funny) "The Pot Smoker's Song" and the schmaltz of "Knackleflerg" and the better tracks finding Neil stuck somewhere between folk pop and Jimmy Webb without the depth to match either. Then, in 1969, a divine plan sent Neil to Chips Moman's American Sound Studios in Memphis and that is how "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show" ended up being a (Neil Diamond version of a) butt kicking record.
"Hot August night and the leaves hangin’ down and the grass on the ground smellin’ sweet" and a great church piano lick set the scene beautifully, with the bass providing just enough sin to draw you in and before you know it, you've packed up the babies and grabbed the old ladies and fans are attempting to cut through the heat of revelation. "Cherry, Cherry" it isn't yet the same energy is there and soul it ain't, but it's not quite anything else either. One thing is certain, it wouldn't have worked if it had been recorded anywhere else. Once again, the single mix, heavy with reverb, a bit of double tracked vocal, and a tambourine on the edge of a nervous breakdown blows the album mix away yet that mono mix still remains outside the digital domain.
Sticking with their preferred theme of persecution, southern evangelicals cried that they were being mocked - by a Jewish boy from Brooklyn no less. Neil's story has changed a bit over the years so who knows what the intention was but, if he started out as a non-believer, as he passed the three minute mark he had clearly been moved - just listen to that yelp!
Being a little ahead of the God/Jesus pop curve that was to come, it wasn't a smash hit - it just missed the top twenty - but it, and the album that shared its name, paved the way for a return to Memphis a few months later to lay down the iconic groove that became "Sweet Caroline". Sequined shirts below unfortunate hair would follow and "Cracklin' Rosie" aside, "The Jewish Elvis" would never be the same or as good*.
*I don't care if he was on "The Last Waltz" and I still say "Beautiful Noise" wasn't that good even though it was pretty good.
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