This Time I’ll Be Sweeter

This first time I heard this song was a live perform by a 1980 singer, Angela Bofill…Angie for short…and the name of her eponymous first album. I really liked it.

Fast forward several years and I come across this version of the song by Isaac Hayes – “the Black Moses of Soul”. What a great honorarium!! Isaac was a major force behind the Stax/Volt sound out of Memphis, mostly as a composer, but later in his career as a soul singer. And what a great voice he has!! Deep, melodious, strong, tender…he had it all.

I first learned of his solo singing talents when I bought his album “Hot Buttered Soul”. The album contained an amazing rethought rendition of “Walk on By”, Hal David and Burt Bachrach’s song that was a hug e hit for Dionne Warwick in the ’60’s. The song was a masterful 12:02 opus that begin  begins with a 2:10 instrumental that couldn’t be any more creative or soulful. Only then does he begin to tell his story of lost love and a broken heart. Finally the song slips into a mesmerizing closing vamp. It is ALL  amazing.

Once he sort of established himself as a storyteller in song, he began experimenting  with other love songs, one of which was “This Time I’ll Be Sweeter” about lover begging and pleading for a second chance…a sad but all too true story.

The song, like “Walk on By” has three main parts, a relatively short one minute instrumental intro followed by a moving four minute oral recitation of the situation.   FINALLY, five minutes into the cut, we get to the song itself. Saving the very best for last, at 8:00 the song heads into a five minute closing vamp with some of the BEST BACKUP VOCALS ever…these women are on on fire and NOT to be missed.

And NOW you know why they call him “The Black Moses of Soul”.