By GRAHAM REID
(Herald rating: * * *)
Music as much as politics creates the backdrop in the Will Smith bio-pic of Muhammad Ali, which opens today. David Elliott as Sam Cooke in a nightclub provides a thrilling start with a lengthy Bring It On Home To Me and Salif Keita's anthemic
Tomorrow is used in the uplifting scenes in Zaire. Both are the best sections of the film.
This collection, while including those tracks, also indulges R. Kelly with the watery The World's Greatest and Everlast's embarrassing The Greatest, in which he tries to be Ice T.
It hits a more spiritual and soulful place with Alicia Keys' Fight, Al Green with Booker T and the MGs on A Change is Gonna Come, Aretha's Ain't No Way and Angie Stone's 20 Dollars.
Bilal's Sometimes is a jazz-soul oddity and there's the leaden instrumental All Along the Watchtower from the Watchtower Four.
But cellist Martin Tillman and a Lisa Gerrard track take things out nicely with suggestions of dreamy world music. So a slightly mixed bag with a few cruiserweights among the king hitters.
Label: Interscope
