What Color Is Love — Terry Callier and the Sound of Spiritual Soul (1973)
Terry Callier’s What Color Is Love (1972) is soul as reflection — morning calm and evening warmth in perfect balance. Rafi Mercer on grace, groove, and timeless tenderness.
By Rafi Mercer
Some albums seem to belong to the in-between hours — the quiet time before the day begins, or the stillness after it ends. Terry Callier’s What Color Is Love is one of those rare records that holds both sunrise and dusk in its hands. Released in 1972 on Cadet Records, it’s a soul album that behaves like a symphony: wide in scope, intimate in feeling, and so beautifully recorded that half a century later it still sounds alive in the air.
Callier was from Chicago, and you can hear the city in every measure — the jazz phrasing, the folk clarity, the gospel patience. But nothing about this record is genre-bound. It floats somewhere between Curtis Mayfield’s social soul and Nick Drake’s introspection, between Gil Scott-Heron’s awareness and Coltrane’s devotion. It’s music for people who listen with their whole selves.
The title track opens with that unmistakable slow sway — strings and horns rising like morning light through curtains. Callier’s voice arrives low and sure, half whisper, half sermon: “You say you love the rain, but you use an umbrella to cover your head.” It’s philosophy disguised as song, and it lands differently depending on the hour. In the morning it sounds like promise; at night, like reflection. Through a good sound system, the arrangement blooms — congas and acoustic guitar on the edges, bass breathing steady at the centre, and those Chicago horns curling like smoke.
Then “Dancing Girl” lifts the mood, an eight-minute masterclass in groove and patience. The rhythm section moves like a pulse at rest, letting the strings and woodwinds dance around Callier’s storytelling. His phrasing is conversational, effortless, as though he’s speaking to one person across the room. The production — handled by the great Charles Stepney — gives it a cinematic depth; every instrument has air, every frequency warmth.
“Just as Long as We’re in Love” feels like the heart of the album — an uncomplicated declaration wrapped in complexity. It’s pure soul, but the chords suggest something beyond R&B: there’s jazz harmony here, and that unmistakable folk sensibility that keeps the lyric grounded. When the background vocals enter, it feels communal — a hymn to endurance.
What makes What Color Is Love extraordinary is its balance between social conscience and private tenderness. “Ho Tsing Mee (A Song of the Sun)” touches on protest without preaching; “You Go Miss Your Candyman” is sensual, playful, and wise. Throughout, Callier’s voice is an instrument of truth — textured, compassionate, never hurried. He doesn’t sing at you; he sings with you.
On a proper hi-fi system or in a listening bar, the record breathes differently. The low end is velvet, the mids organic, the strings smooth as candlelight. It’s one of those albums where the soundstage itself tells part of the story — you can sense the players leaning in, the microphones capturing not just notes but intention.
Callier never achieved the fame of his contemporaries, perhaps because his work resisted easy categorisation. But that’s also why it endures. He wasn’t chasing a moment; he was documenting the feeling of being alive within one. What Color Is Love is timeless because it’s human — questioning, hopeful, tender, wise.
On mornings when the light is soft, it feels like guidance. On evenings when the world slows down, it feels like truth. Few albums manage both.
Some records you hear once and remember. This one remembers you.
Every month, The Listening Club gathers around an album like this one. Join here.
Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters.
For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe, or click here to read more.
