Classic Soul - “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”

To date, the Soul album recently released by soul musician Seal has sold over 100, 000 copies in the United States alone, which can only be seen as fantastic, as the album hit stores a little over one month ago. One can expect to see this album reaching iconic status in the New Year, which is exceptional, owing to the fact that it is an album entirely of cover songs.

The fifth song on this epic album has earned the #110 spot on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” was co-written by Otis Redding and Jerry Butler and was released in 1965.

The song was released as the A-side of a single by Otis, and appeared again on his third album Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul. “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” is (obviously) a love song, following the trend of some of the other songs on Seal’s cover album.

Almost immediately after Redding’s version was released in 1965, it was covered by The Rolling Stones. The Stones version was overdubbed with screaming girls and released on their very first live album Got Live If You Want It! This version gave quite a bit of white audience exposure to Redding’s music (considerably so in Europe) which was a significant career changing moment for Redding. Otis was incredibly grateful to the Stone’s for this. So much, in fact, that he later covered their still popular song “Satisfaction” to return the favor.

Possibly the most popular (and controversial) cover of “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” was one done by Ike and Tina Turner in 1968. The end of the song features a call and response done by the duo, after which Tina can be seen holding the microphone in a suggestive way and Ike is making inappropriate gestures and noises while playing guitar in the live version. The song finishes while Tina Turner simulates an orgasm.

Whether or not this version of the song truly pays homage to the soul classic, one thing is for sure, Seal definitely does in his. Seal’s powerful voice speaks deeply into his fans in a constant, beautiful way.

It is hard to say for certain how the Soul album will fare in 2009 but as fan I hope for the best and look forward to taking a closer look at the other songs on the album.

Check out the great video here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KOkKWSPwx6M