Pulse: 60 Second Critic: CD: The Three Tenors of Soul
The Three Tenors of Soul, All the Way from Philadelphia
Shanachie Entertainment; $18.98
The soulful “Sound of Philadelphia” once defined the city musically around the world, especially in the songs of ’70s balladeers like the Stylistics, the Delfonics and Blue Magic. The distinctive falsettos of those groups’ lead vocalists on a new album should send a shudder of excitement down the spines of TSOP fans. Instead, producers have taken these magnificent voices and thrown them haphazardly onto a cover album. With karaoke-like presentations of the Bee Gees’ “Too Much Heaven” and Hall & Oates’s “I Can’t Go for That,” this recording teeters on calamity. There are plenty of big names represented on it. Too bad Philadelphia’s golden musical era isn’t.
