Editorial Product Review: essential recording:This is Etta James's first full-length album, recorded for Chess Records' Argo subsidiary in 1960. It taps all aspects of her then-blossoming talent. There's the crooning rock ballad 'My Dearest Darling' and the elegantly symphonic 'Sunday Kind of Love.' Her classic, brokenhearted 'All I Could Do Was Cry' follows the sweet title track and the bawdy blues stomper 'I Just Want to Make Love to You.' And there's a version of Harold Arlen's 'Stormy Weather,' ...
Editorial Product Review:Album Description:Lady Day: The Best Of Billie Holiday is an ideal introduction to the Voice of Jazz in all its enduring glory. This incomparable collection draws on the 10-CD boxed set Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia (1933-1944) (CXK 85470), representing not only her finest work, but American jazz and pop singing at its zenith. Accompanied sublimely by a Who's Who of the Swing Era (including her soulmate Lester Young, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Buck ...
Editorial Product Review: :She's no stranger to the towering highs and lows of the heart, and Etta James's soaring, gospel-tinged pipes match up well with the rigors of unabashed bliss. Happily, the good people at Chess Records recognize this, and they have thoughtfully collected some of the best examples into one tidy record. Kicking off with her classic treatment of 'At Last,' the collection moves through the lilting strings of 'My Dearest Darling' on into the expressive tones of 'I ...
Editorial Product Review: :She's no stranger to the towering highs and lows of the heart, and Etta James's soaring, gospel-tinged pipes match up well with the rigors of unabashed bliss. Happily, the good people at Chess Records recognize this, and they have thoughtfully collected some of the best examples into one tidy record. Kicking off with her classic treatment of 'At Last,' the collection moves through the lilting strings of 'My Dearest Darling' on into the expressive tones of 'I ...
Editorial Product Review: :She's no stranger to the towering highs and lows of the heart, and Etta James's soaring, gospel-tinged pipes match up well with the rigors of unabashed bliss. Happily, the good people at Chess Records recognize this, and they have thoughtfully collected some of the best examples into one tidy record. Kicking off with her classic treatment of 'At Last,' the collection moves through the lilting strings of 'My Dearest Darling' on into the expressive tones of 'I ...
Editorial Product Review: :Californian Etta James decided against accepting filmmaker Martin Scorcese's personal invitation to sing at The Blues gala in New York in early 2003. The well-celebrated soul and blues queen makes amends here with what is one of the most blues-centered recordings in her expansive discography, bringing her big, no-nonsense voice and her feisty, proud woman's point of view to bear on classics, many identified with Chicago. The likes of Howlin' Wolf's 'Smokestack Lightnin',' Jimmy Reed's 'Hush Hush,' ...
Editorial Product Review: : Hot on the heels of Nina Simone's like-minded project, this 14-track disk takes Billie Holiday's masterful and mourning vocals of 1935 to 1958 to the 21st-century digital dance floor, courtesy of some resourceful remixers and DJs from Swingsett & Takuya and Nickodemus & Zeb to Organica and Poppyseed. You have to give these aural alchemists credit for their daring, but some tracks work better than others. The best include 'Spreadin’ Rhythm Around,' featuring Digable Planet's Ladybug ...
Editorial Product Review: essential recording:Culled from the Columbia Records reissue packages, variously released under the multivolume Quintessential Billie Holiday umbrella, this package goes straight for the love songs, the heart of Holiday. Ranging from such playful lyrics as 'Let's Do It' and 'Them There Eyes' to such essential Holiday as 'You Go to My Head,' 'The Very Thought of You,' and 'Easy Living,' this set is guaranteed to keep the home fires burning brightly. Lay this one on your ...
Editorial Product Review: :Etta James is the dues-paying blues mama. Throughout her tragic and storied career, Miss Peaches has successfully delivered her growling soul and soaring vocals to everything from Chicago blues to pop. Her voice is one of the most distinctive in the entire blues canon and The Essential Etta James captures it in its prime; 44 tracks cover her best Chess Records work from 1960 to the early '70s. And though her early R&B hits for Modern like ...
Editorial Product Review:Album Description:Limited 'Millennium Edition' reissue of classic 1958 album in a deluxe heavyweight miniaturized LP sleeve complete with inner sleeve and a Japanese-style obi strip on the spine. 12 tracks. Individually numbered. 1999 release. essential recording:A harrowing classic, Billie Holiday's personal favorite among her '50s albums captures the singer 17 months before her death, her once honeyed voice, scarred and weakened from punishing life, its ravages highlighted by the 1958 session's crisp sonics and the contrasting 'satin' ...
