A few years back Jim Webb, on the Archive album, reworked songs of his which others had recorded beautifully. It was a fascinating, flawed project; you didn’t begrudge Webb the indulgence. If there’s one living songwriter even more entitled to show us how he’d sing his own stuff, it’s Dozier. The Motown legend who, along with the brothers Holland, penned such masterpieces as “This Old Heart Of Mine”, “I Hear A Symphony” and “Stop! In The Name Of Love” here re-imagines for piano and voice a dozen durable diamonds. He slows them right down and lures out every last drop of angst (as, he says, he did when first drafting them). Very Radio 2 on the surface, but listen close and his world is empty without her.
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