What a voice! That’s the first reaction I had when I first heard unsung Southern soul legend James Carr singing this. And I’m sure I’m not alone.

Actually, it was the second reaction: the first was that I must be listening to Otis Redding, to whom he was often compared. It’s not just the tone, or the timbre, but the passion and the emotion. Or, to use the better known shorthand – the soul.

One of the greatest pure vocalists that deep Southern soul ever produced, and making some of the most intense country-soul ever heard, Carr was frequently compared to Otis, Aretha and Percy Sledge in terms of the wrenching emotional power in his delivery.

Sadly, he never achieved the pop crossover success that would have made him a household name, and he remains more of a well kept secret among hardcore soul aficionados.

You could blame that on weak material but the truth lies elsewhere: he was plagued for much of his life by severe depression that made pursuit of a career extraordinarily difficult for him, meaning he left behind a limited legacy when he died.

Like so many soul singers, James Carr was the son of a church minister. Born in 1942 in Mississippi, his father moved the family to Memphis when he was very young and he followed the traditional route of singing in church from the age of nine, going on to perform with gospel groups in his teens.

Moving to secular music, he was turned down by Stax in 1963 but got a deal a year later with another Memphis label called Goldwax, which also had O.V. Wright – with whom Carr had sung in gospel group The Redemption Harmonizers.

Over the next couple of years, Carr cut several singles that ranged from Motown-ish pop to soul-blues, searching for the best style to suit his rich baritone, and finally found success in 1966 with the country-soul ballad You Got My Mind Messed Up, earning instant comparisons to Otis.

That kicked off the prime period of Carr’s recording career, and was followed by his signature song, a tortuously intense performance of Dark End of the Street, a bleak tale of adultery that marked the first songwriting collaboration between Dan Penn and Chips Moman.

It would go on to be recorded by big names including Aretha Franklin, Clarence Carter, Linda Ronstadt, Ry Cooder and The Flying Burrito Brothers but Carr’s original version still stands as the definitive one.

Future singles included the heart-wrenching Love Attack and the exquisite Pouring Water On A Drowning Man, and his 1966 debut LP You Got My Mind Messed Up is considered a classic by many Southern soul collectors. But despite some success on the R&B charts, Carr found himself unable to deal with the stress of touring; he frequently wandered off alone and got lost.

By 1968, his mental state had deteriorated greatly, making even recording sessions a challenge. He was able to complete a second LP, 1968’s A Man Needs A Woman, and in Muscle Shoals for his last Goldwax session in 1969, he simply sat at the microphone and stared into space, singing only one song (The Bee Gees’ To Love Somebody).

Soon after that Goldwax went bankrupt and although Carr signed with Atlantic, he released only one single in 1971, followed by one for a small label in 1977. Two years later, he undertook a tour of Japan that started off well but in Tokyo, after apparently having taken too many anti-depressants, he stood motionless at the microphone as though in a hypnotic trance.

He returned to Memphis, where he lived with his sister between spells in mental institutions, and spent much of the ’80s barely conscious of the world around him. With medication, his condition improved to the point where he could make a new album – Take Me To The Limit – in 1991 for a revived Goldwax.

Carr was even able to return to the road, touring the blues circuits in America and Europe, and in 1994 he released another album titled Soul Survivor, but was diagnosed with lung cancer soon afterwards, and died in 2001.