 |  | Astonishing Voice; Well Engineered CD - The Best! |  |
It's hard to choose a "best" CD when it comes right down to it, isn't it? There are simply too many choices - too many artists - too many great CDs, songs and singers. I mean could one really choose that perfect CD that would not only be a desert island disc but might become your *only* desert island disc? The Eileen Farrell Album would be my candidate for the most accomplished CD of the 20th century - that very best of all the possible CDs. Ms. Farrell, along with Luther Henderson and his Orchestra, create a rare sort of magic. A vein of magic that I have never experienced so completely on any other CD. Her voice is pop perfection - her range is impressive and her high notes are as sustained as her low notes. She sings from the gut with unexpected gusto. Her perfect pop performance is all the more amazing when you understand her accomplishments as an opera singer and performer. I have heard these recordings at least 500 times and perhaps even more. They keep revealing themselves in ever deeper patterns - they keep getting better! I am always afraid that I am going to wear out my CD. Great to see that the MP3 version of the album is now available. One need never fear that Eileen Farrell will vanish into the ether one day.
April 18, 2008When "I Gotta Right To Sing the Blues" first came out, I was already a fan. Farrell's career in radio and opera was flourishing, and this album was just right for a fledgling singer, myself. Many years and miles later I discovered that most of my precious LP collection had been lost along the way. Imagine my joy to discover Amazon's CDs. Now I can play Eileen whenever I wish - singing with her, of course. I never became a hit songstress, but my soul is very happy to have her voice in my world again. I am saving up to complete my collection of her torch songs, ballads and opera.
January 4, 2007| | | The best female singer of the 20th century | |
Forget Barbra. Forget Celine. Eileen Farrell puts them both in the shade. Her tone is gorgeous, her rhythms are spot-on, her diction is crisp, her interpretations are sly, sexy, enticing. As other reviews here have mentioned, Farrell was also a world-class opera singer who brought her enormous artistry to the American popular song. Rudolf Bing, then the general director of the Metropolitan Opera, looked down on her pop singing, but that didn't stop her. She sang well into her sixties (maybe beyond...I'm not sure), with the same style and grace you hear in these recordings. Eileen Farrell died recently, so we won't hear the likes of this voice again. Treasure this one.
January 12, 2003| | | Absolutely Stunning. A Must-Have! | |
Any fan of the late dramatic soprano's operatic artistry should also have this album to demonstrate how equally adept she was in the realm of classic pop music. You will flabbergast your friends by switching from, say, Verdi's "Ernani, Involami" to "Sunny Side of the Street" (both recorded in 1959), because there is no way someone not in-the-know can tell they are the same artist. On this album she simply sounds like a incredibly versatile big-band singer, not an opera singer who is slumming out her repertoire....
January 10, 2003| | | Indispensable. A knockout! | |
The first time you hear this CD, you'll probably be most struck by the first track - a beautiful, heartbreaking, even overwhelming rendition of "Blues in the Night" - as glorious a celebration of female pop vocal prowess as has ever been recorded by anyone, anywhere. But as you continue to listen to and live with "The Eileen Farrell Album", you'll discover that that "Blues in the Night" is merely the first among equals in what is actually an entire (generous) CD's worth of dynamite covers that function almost as reinventions of a treasury of pop and jazz standards: Basically, every track is a showstopper.
P>The care that all these artists took to make every moment count is evident throughout the album: Nothing is taken for granted; every song has been rethought, and many are given distinctive interpretations that make the often thrice-familiar numbers seem fresh and even new. Never have you heard "My Funny Valentine" (here done with unique bluesy embellishment) or "The Man I Love" (sung fast, with a bongo accompaniment) done as they are here. But nothing sounds forced or arbitrary; nearly every choice, from the most conventional to the most daring, works.
On almost any other album, any one of these performances (in superbly engineered sound, by the way) would be the high point. Here, the embarrassment of riches is such that you'll find it difficult, in the end, to choose a favorite. My preference? Probably the scintillating, uptempo version of Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer's "I'm Old Fashioned" - the recording, by the way, used in the opening credits of the gay-mobster comedy "Friends and Family".
This CD will make you giddy with delight. May 2, 2002
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