Oscar Toney Jr’s Version of Turn On Your Love Light
Oscar Toney Jr. “Turn On Your Love Light” (Bell, 1967)
This track can be found in “Singles Mixer Vol. 1”
With a rainy Friday night upon us it seems fitting to take Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland’s advice and ‘turn on the love light’, this particular interpretation of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame song “…that changed rock and roll” brought to us by the talented Mr. Oscar Toney Jr.
Toney has the familiar path of coming from Georgia with a background in gospel music, then alongside his two brothers performed in the Doo Wop group The Searchers. After making a few of the right acquaintances and getting some of his early material released on the Cincinnati, OH King label, Toney Jr was signed to Bell records where he cut a number of absolutely perfect sides. While sharing associations, respect and band members with Wayne Cochran (using his backing band), Otis Redding (A letter from Otis is featured prominently on the back of Toney’s first LP), Bobby and James Purify (Toney was a fill in when one of them members was unavailable for a live show), Toney stands on his own (as do all of those artists.)
It was very easy to look around and find a lot of folks stretching into territory that didn’t fit their skill set or impulses, either opportunistically (‘lets do a ‘dance’ song’ when you’re a true deep soul group) or at the pressures of your producer (Sam and Dave famously disliked the way records were written for them, saying they forced sam to sing in a higher register than he was comfortable making them sound more raw), yet Toney always feels right in place, right in time. Never stressed, never rushed or out of place and it shows in his ability to get deeply into this performance.
Often cover songs like this just act as forgettable filler to help create album’s worth of material to support a big single but this record definitely has feet. Recorded with legendary producer Papa Don at Chip Moman’s American Sound Studio, Toney had some great partners working with him in the studio and it shows in this rousing performance of an already established R&B classic.
Hope you enjoy!