Accept No Substitute

Singer Bonnie Bramlett might be the blackest-sounding white soul singer to ever draw breath, and that’s saying something. Here, along with her husband—the gifted multi-instrumentalist Delaney Bramlett—the duo’s second album (released in July 1969) oozes the American South. It doesn’t hurt that the musicians backing them all have heightened senses of musical empathy (Leon Russell, Bobby Whitlock, Rita Coolidge, Bobby Keys, Jim Keltner, and others). It’s a hip-grinding masterpiece that’s part back-porch gospel (“Get Ourselves Together,” “The Gift of Love”), city slang (“Someday,” “The Ghetto”), and oily R&B (“When the Battle Is Over”). The slinky “I Can’t Take It Much Longer” is all Memphis in the nighttime, while the strangely profound “Dirty Old Man” (cowritten by Mac Davis) hits hard with its swampy swing, punchy horn section, and key changes—it sounds like a great Tony Joe White song. A slow-burning take of Penn/Morman’s canonical “Do Right Woman—Do Right Man” makes it the definitive version, and that’s saying something too. It’s no wonder that George Harrison signed Delaney & Bonnie to The Beatles' Apple Records after hearing this.