Singing A Song For You

Sometimes an artist releases a song that rises beyond them and grabs not just you but other artists who each bring the full range of their talents to interpreting this song, often offering up one version better than the next. That is the rabbit hole I went down late at night last week with “A Song for You.”

Written by Leon Russell, the song first appeared on his self-titled 1970 debut solo album, Leon Russell. It’s an achingly beautiful song, for which Leon Russell delivers a heartfelt performance. No less a source than the Encyclopedia of Country Music claims the song was written to be performed by Rita Coolidge.

“Song for You” is a plea from one lover to another, from someone who performs for large crowds but who is essentially alone, and who hopes that his former lover will understand the truth of his love, and return to him, but if not, he hopes that when he is long gone she will remember that once they were alone and he sang her this song.

Russell’s version has a grit to it, his voice scratchy and insistent, and finally he acheives a tone of elegy as the piano crescendos to the song’s conclusion.

The song has been covered by more than 200 artists over the years, including by Andy Williams, Aretha Franklin, Karen Carpenter, Willie Nelson, Whitney Houston, Peggy Lee, Cher, Herbie Hancock featuring Christina Aguilera, and Amy Winehouse, to name a few.

As to who covered it best – that is the rabbit hole I went down. I can’t say I listened to all of the versions, but here are my favorites.

Whitney Houston did a maximalist version with full vocal pyrotechnics as only Whitney could in her prime.

Whitney. sitting on a stool singing to a room of servicemen and their families, demonstrates the full range of her talent, singing softly, intimately even, and then vocalizing full force, hitting the trills and high notes that take us to church and to an even higher plane. This may be one of her greatest performances. And you would not be wrong to think this is a definitive version of “A Song for You.” That is until you hear Ray Charles’ version.

Brother Ray covered this song on many occasions throughout his career. I particularly like the version he performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1997.

Ray Charles could fill a reading of the farmer’s almanac with soul. When Ray Charles sings the words of Russell’s song, you feel as if he’s lived it — a personal, it’s heartfelt, it’s filled with pain. His keyboard playing is equally sensitive. Ray ends repeating “Singing my song” and you feel that this sums up Charles life: love, loss, all at the price of singing his songs.

And, if you felt Ray Charles delivered the definitive emotional reading of Russell’s song, you would not be wrong.

Unless you came upon Donny Hathaway’s version. Some of you may not be familiar with soul singer Donny Hathaway who passed away in 1979. Suffice to say that he was an incredible gospel, soul, and pop and jazz singer. At Howard University he met Roberta Flack who would be a lifelong collaborator (Hathaway sings background vocals on “Killing Me Softly.” One of his signature songs was his cover of “A Song for You.”

From the first notes of his piano playing, and the first verses, Hathaway’s version is drenched in deep feeling. It is a version where you actually feel as if he is talking to his loved one. It is not a performance, but a confession. It aches. And, if you asked a group of music lovers, across the board they would cite this as the definitive version of “A Song for You.” And they would have been right — for several decades.

However, the version that tops them all, is H.E.R. performing “A Song for You” for her mother. It’s her mother’s favorite song and it’s one H.E.R. knows well. There is actually video of H.E.R. playing “A Song for You” at age nine (as Gabrielle Wilson), and then again at age 10 — which was in of itself an amazing performance. But H.E.R. is the full package performing the song solo on piano. H.E.R. brings it all, musical prowess, subtlety, emotion, honesty, intimacy, to her performance.

When H.E.R. sings these lyrics:

You taught me precious secrets

Of a true love withholding nothing

You came out in front when I was hiding

Now I’m so much better

And if my words don’t come together

Listen to the melody

‘Cause my love is in there hiding

That is the gift of Leon Russell’s song.