★★★★★
This album, one of the last Stax releases to make any impact before the venerable label went belly up a short time later, produced a No. 1 hit ("Woman to Woman", two weeks at the top of the Billboard R&B charts) but otherwise failed to register much on the radar. This is a shame, since it was (and remains) a top shelf soul record from one of the most astonishingly consistent labels in the history of commercial music...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-01-09
★★★★★
No text for this review; see http://robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Not a very sisterly exchange--this is traditional woman-as-supplicant stuff, as male-identified as it gets. And the songs don't have a lot of identity either. But though most of this material wouldn't work on the radio, it comes together on album. For sheer vocal beauty, Brown is in a class with Al Green and Aretha Franklin, whose creamy natural timbres hers recalls, though it's not as rich as Aretha's nor as pure as Al's...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
An archetypal Southern soul set full of love sagas by Shirley Brown, who's best remembered for her trend-setting "Woman to Woman." You don't buy a Southern soul album expecting ecology messages, world peace pleas, or anti-alcohol messages, and Three Way Love Affair is no exception. "Sprung on His Love," "A Two-Way Thang," "Silent Treatment," and the title track are spicy Southern soul dishes...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Fair or unfair, Shirley Brown's Malaco efforts are destined to be compared to the mid-1970s Stax recordings that put her on the map. The Aretha Franklin-influenced belter will always be associated with her 1974 pearl "Woman to Woman," and that's a hell of a lot to live up to...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Here are eight songs in the soul/blues groove, reissued from the U.S. Edge label. This includes "Boyfriend," "Looking for the Real Thing," and "Leave the Bridges Standing."
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Closer to classic R&B; than contemporary soul, Diva of Soul works throughout with the added bonus of Brown's smooth vocals.
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Woman to Woman is Shirley Brown's first album and finds the singer settling in nicely to a set of slow ballads, all soaked with an ache that the singer seems born to convey. The title track is the song most associated with the singer and one of the great love-triangle melodramas of the '70s, sparking a series of answer songs, the best of which is Barbara Mason's "From His Woman to You...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
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