Michael McDonald’s husky tenor takes on some of pop’s most heartfelt songs on Soul Speak. As the title suggests, he honours R&B, stripping the glitter from the ‘80s smash “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)” and revving up “For Once In My Life”. But McDonald also borrows from the catalogues of Van Morrison and Leonard Cohen; his warm rework of Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” and gospel reinvention of Cohen’s “Hallelujah” prove that for this legendary singer, soul isn’t a genre but a feeling.