Mr. B was a smooth jazz vocalist in the '40s (his big band then included bebop luminaries like Fats Navarro and Dizzy Gillespie) when he allowed his sub-baritone to languish on hits like Russ Columbo's "You Call It Madness" and "Prisoner of Love" (which is possibly how James Brown came to the latter song in a startling 1963 version). Billy would cross over to a pop audience in the '50s, and in these mature albums he recorded for Stax subsidiary Enterprise in the early '70s, covered such pop hits as the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun," Bread's "Make It With You" and Steven Stills' "Love the One You're With." Smooth, baby. . .