Solomon Burke's 2002 album Don't Give Up on Me was a righteous resurrection of a great Atlantic Sixties soulman who never got his full due from a rock world he so heavily influenced. Make Do With What You Got proves that Burke — whom Van Morrison calls "shaman, showman, the teacher and preacher of soul and R&B and country & western" in the liner notes — is in the midst of more than a one-album comeback.
The band on Make Do, supervised by producer Don Was, delivers slow-burning fire — particularly guitarists Reggie Young and Ray Parker Jr. (who's hereby pardoned for "Ghostbusters"). Burke assumes ownership of Bob Dylan's "What Good Am I?" with his own uptempo version, as well as the Rolling Stones' "I Got the Blues." Forty-four years after he sang the yearning "Just Out of Reach," Solomon Burke sounds like a man who's right where he should be.
