Bill Brandon ranks only as another blip on the soul and R&B circuit from the late sixties, continuing on through the following decade. Denigrating the man’s contributions to music, though, isn’t what this post is about. While Brandon remains only a cursory figure on the scene – and not one that went on to produce works of other players – the early portion of his career is littered with heavy soul tracks, rife for sampling and comparisons to better known figures like Otis Redding or OV Wright.

From the scant information floating around on the interwebs regarding this singer, it doesn’t appear that he dealt with long players – not a shock given the time and genre in which Brandon worked. But with his healthy output of hard to find singles, it was only a matter of time before his efforts were compiled and released to a soul collecting cognoscenti grateful for this piece of historical music.

Cobbled together as On the Rainbow Road (The Muscle Shoals and Birmingham Sessions) there’s more than a decade’s worth of material represented, disseminated in chronological order. And while that type of organization is writ large over any number of discs like these, it often times serves to front load and album. And seeing as the latter day recordings represented here get into the second half of the seventies, there’s a dramatic shift in tone and quality. But even the worst efforts from Brandon and whatever producer he headed into a studio with surpass most of the love drenched nonsense then contemporary in style and popularity.

The title track, obviously Brandon’s best known work, is a slow soul lament given its main melodic figure through its horn section and bolstered by something of an eerie gospel choir in the background. The song’s chorus might come off a bit cheeseball, but Brandon’s ability to render a bad to good luck story in such terms with mention of getting out of debt and buying new clothes is a pretty personal journey. Of course there’s a murder that follows, but you should snag the disc to hear the whole story.

More engaging musically and lyrically is “Self Preservation,” another moderately paced offering. It’s more bad luck, though, as Brandon feels as if he needs to protect himself from impending relationships, because he “can’t stand the pain.” Being afraid of such nonsense isn’t a new concept to render in song, but it’s universally applicable. And that goes a long way towards this music being entertaining so long after it was recorded.