Before he burst on the national pop chart for the first time with the classic Fever, Little Willie John had established himself as one of the decade’s great R&B voices with the blues ballad "Need Your Love So Bad". He had barely turned eighteen in November 1955, and already had few equals in his field.
Although credited to the artist, it was actually written by his older brother while serving in Korea. Guitar wizard Mickey Baker’s “constantly changing chords kept the soft rhythm,” remarked Charlie Gillett, and saxophonist Willis Jackson “breathed gently between the verses, while Willie John pitched his voice high, pure, and desperate.” “Little Willie John is talking about the nether reaches of human misery, in a voice absolutely creaking in agony,” writes Dave Marsh. Mostly “it’s just that night is coming on, and he’s going to have to get through it by himself again. If he can.”
In "Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music", Gerri Hirshey describes the song as “a whole catalogue of need in which the singer longs for soft lips, soft voice, someone’s arms.” On this song, he hiked up “his macho armor enough to reveal vulnerability and the soul man’s nightmare, dependence.” Joe McEwen: “For a mature adult, a performance as dark and knowing as Need Your Love So Bad would have been an achievement worth a lifetime; for a recently turned seventeen-year-old, the song is staggering in its depth and sensitivity.
The song reached #5 on the R&B chart in January 1956.
Although credited to the artist, it was actually written by his older brother while serving in Korea. Guitar wizard Mickey Baker’s “constantly changing chords kept the soft rhythm,” remarked Charlie Gillett, and saxophonist Willis Jackson “breathed gently between the verses, while Willie John pitched his voice high, pure, and desperate.” “Little Willie John is talking about the nether reaches of human misery, in a voice absolutely creaking in agony,” writes Dave Marsh. Mostly “it’s just that night is coming on, and he’s going to have to get through it by himself again. If he can.”
In "Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music", Gerri Hirshey describes the song as “a whole catalogue of need in which the singer longs for soft lips, soft voice, someone’s arms.” On this song, he hiked up “his macho armor enough to reveal vulnerability and the soul man’s nightmare, dependence.” Joe McEwen: “For a mature adult, a performance as dark and knowing as Need Your Love So Bad would have been an achievement worth a lifetime; for a recently turned seventeen-year-old, the song is staggering in its depth and sensitivity.
The song reached #5 on the R&B chart in January 1956.
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