By David Okamoto, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX – [Disc 1, Track 5: "You Just Got To Understand"]
Bobby Patterson may not be the godfather of soul, but the Dallas singer-guitarist was certainly a godsend for R&B fans in the mid '60s.
Armed with a commanding voice capable of soaring from a creamy falsetto to a raucous shout, he grazed the charts with such hits as "She Don't Have to See You" and the funky "T.C.B. or T.Y.A." The 59-year-old Patterson, currently the morning DJ on Soul 730 KKDA-AM, still records on his own label called Proud, which recently released the bluesy Back Out Here Again. But he can be heard in all his yearning, youthful glory on Soul Is My Music, a new compilation of the ragged but righteous 45s that he recorded for the tiny local Abnak label and its Jetstar subsidiary between 1965 and 1970. Re-mastered from the original mono source tapes by noted reissue label Sundazed Music, the two-CD set spotlights a little-known chapter in Lone Star music history.
[Disc 1, Track 12: "I'm Leroy"]
Backed by a band of local roof-raisers called the Mustangs, the University of Texas at Arlington student's stinging guitar work evoked the blues heroes he discovered by sneaking into such local haunts as the Empire Room and the Goldmine as a teenager. But he also got swept away by the sweet soul music emanating outside of Texas - the horn-fueled, gospel-style testifying of Memphis, the organ-based, guitar-flecked punch of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and the polished Motown sound of Detroit.
He wasn't part of those scenes, but Patterson soaked up their hooks and hallmarks, blending them into an exuberant sound that celebrated such contemporaries as Solomon Burke and Wilson Pickett without mimicking them. Unofficial sequels like "Broadway Ain't Funky No More" and "Mama's Got a New Bag Too" snared attention, while the arrangements of "Till You Give In" and "T.C.B. or T.Y.A.," an acronym for "take care of business or turn yourself around," accented original compositions with clever tributes to current hits - the latter imagined how Johnnie Taylor's "Who's Making Love" might sound with James Brown at the mike.
[Disc 2, Track 1: "TCB or TYA"]
The music may have taken cues from Stax, Atlantic and Motown, but Patterson's message was straight from the heart. Such tunes as "You Just Got To Understand," "You Taught Me How to Love" and "If I Didn't Have You" emphasized not just love, but devotion. While other R&B frontmen lamented the women that left them, Patterson tried to convince them to either stay or come back. He didn't beg, he didn't scream - he stood his ground, and just opened his arms.
[Disc 1, Track 7: "If I Didn't Have You"]
Commitment in the face of rejection, forgiveness in the light of betrayal - those are the virtues that the young Bobby Patterson sang about, and they remain the trademarks of a true soul man.
[Disc 1, Track 6: "Till You Give In"]
David Okamoto is a senior entertainment producer at Yahoo Broadcast and a contributing editor to ICE Magazine.