Terry Callier’s story is such a heartwarming and positive one, that in these dark, cynical times it makes you regret his untimely passing in 2012, aged just 67, even more. Born on the north side of Chicago and raised in the Cabrini-Green housing projects, he was childhood friends with Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler, and began his musical life in the same way as they had—doo-wop harmonizing in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

His path though would divert to a more folk and jazz influenced one, performing in coffee houses and soaking up Coltrane during his college years. A debut album appeared in 1968 on Prestige Records entitled The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier, but by the beginning of the 1970s, Callier found himself writing material for Chess Records subsidiary Cadet. Before long, he was recording solo material that revealed far more to his style than a straight-up folk sound. Jazz, soul and folk entwined effortlessly to produce three albums of unique charm for Cadet over a three-year span: 1972’s Occasional Rain and What Color Is Love, followed by 1974’s I Just Can’t Help Myself.

His recording career continued—albeit less successfully—through the ‘70s and early ‘80s until he abandoned music to take custody of his daughter and teach computer programming at university. Then some years later, the obscurity he’d sought out began to dissipate. With music too good to stay hidden, acid jazz DJs began to unearth the treasures in his past and play them to hungry, eager crowds who lapped up his unique brand of soulful sounds. It wasn’t too long before he returned to recording with the masterful Timepeace in 1998 and his latter day rejuvenation was complete—a return to what he loved that lasted until his passing in 2012.

What Color Is Love is 40 or so minutes of undiluted bliss and beauty that deserves to be heralded in the same way as those titanic soul albums of the 1970s by artists such as Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway and his childhood friend Curtis Mayfield.

If you don’t know Terry Callier’s music, start here, in fact start anywhere. Just get some in your life.