A much better effort than his self-titled debut,
With Love
shows
Ralfi Pagan
with more command over his voice and with much better arrangements to back him up -- by
Louie Ramirez
on side one and
Marty Sheller
on the flip.
Pagan
handles a difficult song like the opener,
"Make It With You,"
with more confidence than he would have earlier, and the strung-out
blues
guitar during the intro doesn't hurt either. There's hardly any
Latin
left to this crossover album; it turns out that concentrating purely on
pop
makes for a much more consistent LP. Surprisingly, only
"Make It With You"
is a cover, though the others (with songwriting credits to
,
Ramirez
Joe Bataan
, and
Harvey Averne
) display a lot of influence from early-'70s
soul
, and even
cocktail
jazz
.
"Latin Soul"
is a nice
boogaloo
change of pace (a bit of a repeat from his earlier LP), and while
"Ain't No Big Thing"
isn't going to compete with
James Brown
, it's pleasant enough for a side-two song. No one was confusing him with
Smokey Robinson
or
Curtis Mayfield
either, but
is a notable success from one of
Fania
's sideline artists. ~ John Bush