Transcendental Rn'B

Mac Gayden wrote Everlasting Love, which is a strange song. It kicks off normally enough, with a verse leading into the chorus, but then there's a short bridge or middle eight or whatever, and the chorus gets sung again, and the verse effectively disappears, sketched in as backing vox to a relatively long instrumental fade. One verse, couple of choruses, and a big thumping hit down four decades.

Gayden is a curious Nashville cat, his music a mix of Rn'B, country, and hippie mysticism. The suite-like feel of his extended songs owes something, perhaps, to prog. He blamed country music for forcing black musicians off the streets of Nashville, "which used to be an Rn'B river town", a point of view you don't see expressed too often.

That's him playing slide on JJ Cale's Crazy Mama, and the list of sessions he didn't play on is probably shorter than the one of those he did, often using his unique wah-slide technique.

The shortness of the shrift he gets on Allmusic reflects the fact that his participation in Area Code 615 and Barefoot Jerry is better known than his solo output, which is blister-packed for your convenience here.

The recent-ish Nirvana Blues is something of a disappointment, lacking the experimental freedom that lifted those first three albums into the extraordinary.