Word: albums
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Calif.) High School dance band, with a harmony group for the Elks Club. Finally came the Big Audition-with Tommy Oliver's band at the Deauville country club in Santa Monica, and the Big Click. A demonstration disk played for Warner Bros. record company resulted in her first album, Positively the Most, a title artfully designed to rhyme with Drost. But Joanie had already decided the Drost was dross as far as names went, tried out Joan St. Clair, Joanie Post, and finally decided-for no particular reason-on Joanie Sommers. Says she: "I can't think...
...album and Joanie's haunted-hoarse voice, became pets of disk jockeys everywhere. A refreshing change from the smoldering young sirens whose singing style tries to suggest that they are capable of unseemly passion, Joanie sounds throaty but relaxed, is admired both by rock 'n' rollers (for whom she steadfastly refuses to rock) as well as by those who pant for Ella and Frankie. Mort Sahl heard the records, took a look at gamin-faced Joanie, signed her up to accompany him on a 35-city concert tour. Suddenly everybody wants Joanie. She has just made...
...singers worth investigating are Karen James and Jack Elliott. Karen James hails from Canada, and is recorded on Folkways. The title of the album is "Karen James" (oddly enough). Her voice has many of the piercing tonal qualities of Peggy Seeger and Jean Ritchie, and she sings some very fine versions of Old English (Child) ballads, together with some fair-to-middling satirical songs. Jack Elliott sings the songs of Woody Guthrie on a Prestige International release, of which the finest is "Pretty Boy Floyd." Unlike many singers of "songs of protest," Mr. Elliott can play the guitar...
Verdi: "Di quella pira" from Il Trovatore (Tap). This album, as its cover proudly proclaims, presents one aria rendered by 40 tenors, containing 80 high Cs. As written by Verdi, Di quella pira ("From that pyre"), from the third act of Il Trovatore, had not a single high C in it, but Tenor Enrico Tamberlik (1820-89) started inserting one in the middle and one at the end-and they have been there ever since. The 40 tenors sing in six languages, and generally bleat, screech, bawl and scream in a manner calculated to make any listener sympathize with Rossini...
...Blues for Rampart Street (Coleman Hawkins Quintet; Riverside). The storied 1920s blues singer was around 70 when she came out of retirement to record this album last spring-and her dragging tempo and uncertainty of pitch give her away. But her voice-more nasal and corrugated than ever-is still an impressive instrument in Fogyism and Wild Women Don't Have the Blues, as Ida sells her message with a conviction that singers a third her age cannot muster...