AMG Review of What Color Is Love

Ryan Randall Goble
All Music Guide

Like the artist himself, the music on this brilliant album defies all categories, embracing Terry Callier's wide range of influences and experiences. Callier's musical kaleidoscope is filled with funk, rock, folk, jazz, and even classical influences. "Dancing Girl" opens the album with Charles Stepney's majestic orchestration. This opus is the album's pinnacle, moving with soft intensity toward soul-stirring crescendos. Songs like "What Color Is Love" and "Ho Tsing Mee (A Song of the Sun)," an elegant antiwar prayer of confusion, somehow avoid clichés or take them to another level. "You Goin' to Miss Your Candyman" was made popular by Urban Species when they sampled it on "Listen" in the early '90s, and not surprisingly, it sounds better in its original form. No matter where you turn, Callier's passionate voice captures the sweeping drama of the human condition. A lost romantic amid "concrete front yards," this album is a must-have for any music connoisseur.