It’s faintly absurd that a singer whose career spans six decades should need introducing, but Darlene Love is one of the 1960s girl-group footsoldiers who has consistently marched at the periphery of the spotlight, except when friends in high places – including David Letterman – thrust her into full view. The E Street Band’s Steven Van Zandt is a long-time champion, and the 65-minute album he has constructed around her, featuring new songs by Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello, has the gushing quality of a fan tribute. Hyperbole suits Love’s voice: always declamatory, it hasn’t gained delicacy with age, so he rarely calls upon her to do anything other than belt, and in state-of-humanity songs such as Jimmy Webb’s Who Under Heaven and his own Among the Believers, she does so with the conviction of a Hollywood superhero battling apocalypse. Van Zandt’s productions are similarly bombastic, which ought to work fine with his Wall of Sound arrangements, but instead renders them garish with karaoke brightness. The approach works best with the two Springsteen numbers: his lyrics pulse with longing, and Love inhabits them beautifully.
