This Night Won't Last Forever

Born in Wisconsin in 1948, Bill LaBounty has roots in blues, R&B and the old jazz of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. The songs he draws from those sources are simple yet leisurely and emotionally rich. His slightly husky, soulful voice has a warm human quality. His recording debut came in 1972 with Fat Chance, a six-piece he formed with Steve Eaton, known for songs recorded by the Carpenters and Art Garfunkel. He went solo in 1975; this second album followed his move to Curb.

It includes four rerecordings from his previous album, but the quality is uniformly high. Its title track later became his signature song: after his own modest hit, Michael Johnson's version reached the Top 20. Other artists have covered many of his songs too, and his career as a songwriter flourished. He subsequently released only four solo albums through Back to Your Star (2009), the latest at the time of this review. The star-studded Bill LaBounty (1982) is an AOR classic, but apart from differences in polish, the quality of his work has always been consistent.