On any list of underrated soul singers, Al Wilson has to rank near the top. Wilson, who died this past Monday of kidney failure at the age of 68, had one big hit in 1974 with “Show and Tell,” a peerless piece of smooth early ’70s soul that reached number one on the Billboard pop charts, in turn defining his career and suggesting that he was a one-hit wonder even though he followed it with a few hits over the next few years (”I Won’t Last a Day Without You/Let Me Be the One” in 1975, “I’ve Got a Feeling [We’ll Be Seeing Each Other Again]” in 1976). Like many seeming one-hit wonders, there was a lot more to Wilson than that one hit, and he never, ever stopped working — playing clubs and touring well beneath the radar of the mainstream, occasionally re-recording his hits (as he did on 2001’s Spice of Life), because that’s what you do when you’re a working musician. It’s unfortunate that all this hard work didn’t pay off in some kind of full-scale revival prior to his death, something like Arthur Alexander received before his death in 1993, since Wilson’s rich, nuanced singing — akin to a grittier Lou Rawls — deserved wider acclaim. What’s doubly sad is that there is a new CD out that showcases precisely why he’s worthy of such celebration. Kent, a division of the UK-based Ace Records, has just released Searching for the Dolphins, the first reissue of Al Wilson’s earliest recordings, containing all of his 1968 debut for Soul City records, Searching for the Dolphins, along with a bunch of singles he had for that label, Bell, and Carousel in the early ’70s.

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Lalah Hathaway, “Let Go” (Stax/Concord). Written with Rex Rideout (Roy Ayers, Will Downing, Angie Stone) and Rahsaan Patterson (Brandy, Ledisi, Rahsaan Patterson), “Let Go” is an uncomplicated but richly detailed breakup tune in the shape of a gently lapping midtempo groove. What is with the Auto-Tune, though? It’s not a deal-breaker; it’s used only as an accent at the opening and closing of the song, thankfully, but the Cher/T-Pain effect never adds anything to material featuring a voice that can sing in the technically proficient sense. Hathaway’s fourth album, Self Portrait, is due in June.

Ne-Yo, “Closer” (Def Jam). A presumably unintentional re-write of Patrick Swayze’s “She’s Like the Wind” over a straight house beat, plus predictable StarGate presence? Vomitorium on paper, but much more appealing than that on speakers. This will be on The Year of the Gentlemen, Ne-Yo’s third album in as many years, due this summer.

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Surface, Surface (Columbia, 1986). Three years after releasing the heavenly midtempo boogie track “Falling in Love” on Salsoul, Surface signed to Columbia and released their first album, a Lover’s Lane paradise populated by aching, delicately durable ballads — “Happy” being the absolute hottest. Few of the ten tracks cannot be classified as slow or slowish, including the decent late-period electro of “You’re Fine” and “Lady Wants a Man,” as well as the faintly “Falling in Love”-echoing “Feels So Good.” Otherwise, it’s slow grinding and gentle pleading, none of which is overly dramatic — not by mid-’80s R&B standards, at least. Between this and the first Keith Sweat, modern songwriters and producers aiming to make steamy, electronically-enhanced slow jams have several ideas just waiting to be lifted. (Out of print.)

• Happy
• Let’s Try Again

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Eric Lau’s New Territories has something in common with NSM’s Turn It Up, DKD’s Future Rage, and the more relaxed tracks of 4hero’s Play with the Changes, but the recent album from the U.K. it recalls most is Silhouette Brown’s self-titled 2005 release. Like Silhouette Brown, New Territories reduces the more energetic, dancefloor-oriented aspects of London broken beat, retains the deceptive abstractions of left-field hip-hop and R&B, and places equal emphasis on mood and songwriting. One possible set of coordinates for Silhouette Brown producers Dego McFarlane and Kaidi Tatham and Lau includes Patrice Rushen’s “Remind Me” and Roy Ayers Ubiquity’s “Searching” as remixed or covered by the Soulquarians — gentle, nuanced, moving R&B that is equally geared for a relaxed night at home or summer day driving.

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Despite what you might think from the title of this post, we are not poking fun at Randy “The Emperor” Jackson’s look 20 years ago, back when the American Idol judge played with Journey and was Narada Michael Walden’s right-hand man. The post is not a salute to his weight loss, either, as commendable as it is. This being the week Randy Jackson’s Music Club, Vol. 1 hits the shelves of record stores and other retailers, we instead acknowledge Jackson’s 30 years in the business with a semi-arbitrary timeline of his activities as a bass player, songwriter, producer, and A&R man. (The dawg of all dawgs has sometimes been credited with “inspiration,” too.) Jackson’s success is as much about range as it is longevity, from being a top-flight fusion and R&B session bassist — you thought it was Louis Johnson or Bernard Edwards on those Billy Cobham and Stacy Lattisaw records? — to accumulating enough clout to get — or maybe even convince — Anthony Hamilton and John Rich to do a Michael Bublé song.

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