“Liberace was soulful. In fact, you couldn’t get any more soulful than Liberace,” laughs Solomon Burke, only he’s not joking.

Ever since 1964, when an enthusiastic DJ crowned Burke the King of Rock ‘n’ Soul, he’s taken his title seriously. Plus his added credential as a minister born into the House of God of All People means when you ask him a question like, “What is soul?,” he’s going to go deep.

“Kennedy was soulful. Him and Robert together were two soulful brothers, doing their thing, you know, releasing their energies. They could say a few words and boom, you felt it. It made a difference.”

Not too long into my conversation with Mr. Burke, as I was happy to address him (and he didn’t discourage me), boom, I felt it too. Whether it’s his clerical background or just part of his nature to be a listener, Burke is a skilled raconteur who saves space for other voices in the room, responding on a careful soul to soul basis with his conversant. For example, he was just as keen to talk about my work as he was his own (I’ve edited out most of that conversation for the interest of the general readership). Author Peter Guaralnick, in his book Sweet Soul Music, referred to Burke as a “…rare spirit, a ‘character who is also a serious artist’” and to his “outsized spirit and outsized talent.” Most of what I know about Burke’s history comes from Guaralnick’s interviews with him. But what I felt when I talked to Burke myself was something else entirely—perhaps best described as spiritual refreshment—and it’s something that I will carry with me from here.

He’s a Philadelphia native who loves country music and a former “wonderboy preacher,” with 21 children, 89 grandchildren, and 20 great grandchildren. “I’m blessed to have children and grandchildren in almost every state… they’re my record promotion staff!” As a full-time singer, he’s managed to oversee a fleet of snowplows, run concert hall concessions, a drugstore, and tend to corpses as a doctor of mortuary science (no, not all at the same time, but usually by juggling more than one extra-musical activity at a time). As an earthbound man of large appetites and unstoppable force, his road has been paved with many contradictions. His peers called him one of the greats—he’s counted Sam Cooke and Otis Redding among his close friends—though he lost them when they died young and under unsettling circumstances. “If You Need Me” (written by his friend Wilson Pickett), “You Can Make It if You Try”, and “I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel to Be Free)” are foundational to soul sound, style, and attitude, though Burke’s renditions never moved into the mainstream from their R&B (dubbed “rip-off & bullshit” by Bo Diddley) chart positions. Jerry Wexler who signed Burke to Atlantic called him the greatest soul singer of all time, yet when Burke sought Wexler’s help in building community-based businesses and charities with profits from the Soul Clan (Don Covay, Ben E. King, Arthur Conley, and Joe Tex), he was told, “Go back and learn some more songs and pay attention to your records and get out there on that road and try to promote these records and stop thinking on that other stuff,” says Burke. “He didn’t want us to be entrepreneurs; he wanted us to be record sellers.”

So that’s what he did, leaving Atlantic behind for smaller concerns like Bell and Chess, though there were times he fell off the record radar and into “the pits of hell,” as he calls the hard times. Burke may have lost some fortune, but he never lost his humanity nor his versatile, velvet vocal hammer quality; it’s a combination that appealed to fans like the Rolling Stones, who covered him back in the day, and Elvis Costello, Van Morrison, and Tom Waits, who submitted songs to be covered by him on his 2004, award-winning return to rock ‘n’ soul, Don’t Give Up on Me. He’s since released a tribute to country titled Nashville, and a collection featuring gospel greats is in the works. This June he delivered Like a Fire with its title song written for Burke by his friend Eric Clapton. The smoldering blues, pop, and twang album includes “We Don’t Need It”, an old school-styled soul song written by Keb’ Mo, and the tough “A Minute to Rest and a Second to Pray”, by Ben Harper, who sits in on the track. The sessions for Like a Fire were overseen by Steve Jordan, a producer and drummer for rock’s super-names who also wrote and co-wrote some songs. When Crawdaddy! contacted Burke for this interview, he was at home in Southern California, where he’s lived for 40 years. Following an 18-week stand at the Sands in Vegas and an offer to do 12 more, he went to LA for a little vacation. “I called my mother in Philadelphia, said I was bored here with nothing to do, and she said, ‘Don’t come home now, there’s six feet of snow.’ So I thought, I’ll take a little vacation. I’ve been on vacation ever since 1968!”

Crawdaddy!: I want to start by saying thanks for all the great music.

Solomon Burke: I’m still trying.

Crawdaddy!: You’re succeeding. Your performances on the new album are as moving as ever. Tell me how you first became acquainted with Steve Jordan.

Burke: We’d been talking about making an album for a couple of years now… I worked with him on festivals and I loved his rhythms. It’s so nice when you’re working on a big festival show with 75 acts and you only have 20 minutes to rehearse and the drummer’s on time, someone who keeps the rhythm and the pulse. He’s not only a taskmaster—I recognized him as a great musician and a beautiful person.