Faith & Spirit Quote by Solomon Burke

A whole business strategy is hiding inside Burke's offhand phrasing, and that's what makes it land. "Put me together" sounds casual, even friendly, but it frames Burke less as a lone genius and more as a deliberate intervention in a corporate ecosystem. Buddy Glee isn't just a manager here; he's a broker, a translator between a Black soul singer and a label apparatus looking for the next lever to pull.

The key move is Burke calling it "the idea to bring some soul to the label" - a line that reads like pride and indictment at once. On the surface, it's opportunity: soul as freshness, as expansion, as proof of range. Underneath, it's the familiar mid-century dynamic where Black music is treated as both essential fuel and market "difference", something you import to modernize a brand. Burke's wording doesn't romanticize it. Soul isn't presented as a sacred tradition; it's positioned as a product category the label lacked.

Then there's the sharp little phrase "besides the Hank Williams situation". Burke name-checks country royalty not to flatter him, but to sketch the label's existing identity - white, Southern, already legible to mainstream America. Calling it a "situation" is wonderfully distancing, like he's stepping around an established narrative the company can't quit. The subtext: the label had a story; Burke was brought in to change the plot, not just sing on the soundtrack.

In a few clipped clauses, Burke captures how careers were often made in rooms where "soul" meant both culture and commodity, and where being "different" was valuable - as long as it sold.