Roy Hamilton was certainly in commercial decline in the mid- to late '60s, his last big pop hit having been with 1961's "You Can Have Her." Yet his voice was still great, actually, and he was still making some good records, even if they were out of step with the times and extremely erratic stylistically. The 22-track Tore Up is mostly devoted to 1965-1969 recordings that represented his final music-making prior to his death in 1969, though a couple 1960 tracks are incongruously included (as are two versions of "It's Only Make Believe," one of them mono). The difficulty in listening to all of this in one gulp isn't at all due to Hamilton's performances, which are very good. It's more in the almost unnerving changes of gears, moving from adult-oriented interpretations of standards like "The Impossible Dream" and attempts at somewhat contemporary soul to material that's far more pop than R&B, including some gospel-pop and orchestrated ballads. More open-minded soul listeners who don't mind songs with an overt pop flavor, however, will enjoy the diversity on offer here in the more impressive numbers, like a cool 1965 cover of the Beatles' "And I Love Her," the 1966 Bacharach/David covers "Let the Music Play" and "Reach Out for Me," and the odd Mexican-spiced Mann/Weil melodrama "Angelica." On quite a few of these sides, it's easy to hear how heavily his big-voiced vibrato influenced Elvis Presley; the five tracks cut in Memphis in 1969, in fact, sometimes sound a little like Elvis outtakes. Unfortunately, the transfer to compact disc isn't all it could be, some of the songs seeming to have acquired a little varispeed on the way over. ~ Richie Unterberger