On my third or fourth listening to Tribute to Soul, it hit me that this is the first Johnny Rawls recording I have heard without Bob Trenchard attached. Let me be clear: This says more about me than about either of them. I am a fairly literate blues geek but less immersed in soul, and Rawls' career has crossed more than five decades, launched when at 17 he left his Mississippi home to be a road musician. He ended up as a sideman to the likes of Eddie Floyd, Joe Tex, Z.Z. Hill and other notables on the chitlin circuit, which catered to mid-century Black Southerners.

His most lasting professional experience proved to be in the company of regional star O.V. Wright, thought by some to be the most fully accomplished soul singer of them all. Rawls became his musical director as Wright assumed the role of mentor. That influence has stuck even as Rawls went on to develop his own affecting in-the-tradition sound. I reviewed Rawls's celebratory Remembering O.V. in this space on 18 January 2014.

In any event Rawls entered my life during his latter-day association with Trenchard, from whose Texas- and (later) Nebraska-based Catfood label a series of Rawls albums found their way to my doorstep. In time I started to complain -- well, mock complain -- about their ceaseless excellence, rendering them all but reviewer-proof. Trenchard played a significant part in this as producer, studio musician and composer. Each hat he wore, he wore well. Any album they did together fits tightly.

Hearing Rawls without Trenchard, though, I am exposed to other strengths, revived no doubt from his earlier career, which he revisits on the current release. As he works with Dave Keller, a white guy from Vermont with his own talent and an easy chemistry, I am struck by the warmth of the performances and the power of the songs, culled from the soul singers, famous and obscure, these two authorities have kept in memory long after the genre ceased to play on jukeboxes and radios: Wright, of course, but also the others from whom Rawls learned his chops on stage, studio and elsewhere. I mean nothing disrespectful against the Catfood releases when I note how especially accessible this particular set of songs and sonic styles feels.

As the title suggests, soul defines itself via a particularly texture created out of love, sex and heartbreak, with little effort expended on ideas and images outside those. Only a relatively small number of soul anthems have looked to larger concerns (e.g., civil rights in the 1960s). Tribute to Soul breaks little ground in this department. It would have been strange if it had, since its purpose is to remind us of what wild, emotional art early soul created out of primeval human emotion.

Perhaps no track demonstrates that quite like Joe Tex's "Hold What You've Got," which exemplifies the notion of romantic ambition chilled by the prospect of crushing failure. There's also Huey Malraux's strangely menacing "Neighbor, Neighbor," all the scarier because it communicates the impression of being autobiographical. On another side, consider Joe South's "Walk a Mile in My Shoes," which Rawls & Keller retrieve from its place in dated cliche and transform into something that is improbably a pleasure to listen to.