Lady Sings the Blues (RCA Records)
Rebecca Ferguson
Released March 6, 2015
The Telegraph Best Jazz Albums of 2015
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About:
The album – an interpretation of Billie Holiday’s 1956 album of the same name – was recorded at Los Angeles’ famed Capitol Studio with producer Troy Miller, whose credits include Amy Winehouse, Laura Mvula and Rumer. Lady Sings The Blues follows 2013’s Top 10 album Freedom. Her debut, 2011’s Heaven, peaked at Number 3 and has sold over one million copies worldwide.
Track Listing:
1. Get Happy (Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler) 02:48
2. Fine and Mellow (Billie Holiday) 02:36
3. Embraceable You (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) 03:36
4. The Ole Devil Called Love (Doris Fisher / Allan Roberts) 03:06
5. Blue Moon (Lorenz Hart / Richard Rodgers) 02:50
6. I Thought About You (James Van Heusen / Johnny Mercer) 03:03
7. Summertime (George Gershwin / DuBose Heyward / Cefin Roberts) 02:50
8. I’ll Never Smile Again (Ruth Lowe) 03:21
9. Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be) (Jimmy Davis / Roger “Ram” Ramirez / Jimmy Sherman) 03:18
10. All of Me (Gerald Marks / Seymour Simons) 02:38
11. God Bless the Child (Billie Holiday / Arthur Herzog, Jr.) 03:33
12. What Is This Thing Called Love (Cole Porter) 02:37
13. Stormy Weather (Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler) 03:11
14. Lady Sings the Blues (Billie Holiday / Herbie Nichols / Roswell Rudd) 03:36
15. Willow Weep for Me (Ann Ronell) 02:38
16. Don’t Explain (Billie Holiday / Arthur Herzog, Jr.) 03:51
17. My Man (Jacques Charles / Channing Pollack / Albert Willemetz / Maurice Yvain) 03:34
Personnel:
Rebecca Ferguson: vocals
Chuck Berghofer: bass
Stephen Large: piano, celeste
Clayton Cameron: drums, tambourine
Scotty Barnhart: trumpet, flugelhorn
Rickey Woodard: tenor saxophone, bass clarinet
Bob Shepherd: flute, saxophone, clarinet
Tamir Hendelman: piano
Graeme Flowers: trumpet
Femi Temowo: guitar
Backing Vocals: Yvie Burnette, Brandon Winbush, Vernon Burris, Sam Ferguson, Donovan Henry
Troy Miller: conductor, drums, percussion, organ, tambourine, backing vocals, crotales
Violin: Darius Campo, Roger Wilkie, Amy Wickman, Joel Derouin, Carolyn Osborn, Sharon Jackson, Kirsten Fife, Becky Bunnell, Mark Robertson, Jackie Brand
Viola: Brian Dembow, Darrin McCann, Andrew Duccles, Karen Elaine Cello: Andrew Shulman, Stephanie Fife, Rudy Stein, Vanessa Freebairn-Smith
Harp: Amy Wilkins
String Contractor: Ross DeRoche
Recorded at Capitol Studios, Los Angeles, by Steve Genewick
Mixing: Steve Genewick, Peter Beckmann, Troy Miller
Mastering: Peter Beckmann
Photography: Simon Emmett
Art Direction: Roma Martyniuk
Producer: Troy Miller
Review:
Still the best voice to have come out of a Simon Cowell talent contest, former X Factor 2010 runner up Rebecca Ferguson has a rich, tender, soulful tone, a kind of lived-in essence that oscillates precariously between happiness and sadness. It is a quality familiar in the work of tragic jazz legend Billie Holiday, whose centenary is celebrated this year.
Lady Sings The Blues is a more or less straight run through some Holiday classics (including God Bless This Child, Lover Man, and of course, Lady Sings the Blues), freshened up only by the depth of the contemporary recording sound and the particular personality of Ferguson’s first class vocals. The instrumentation is traditional jazz pop, emphasising piano and horns, with orchestras adding an extra glaze of faux sophistication. These songs are so familiar that no one ever really need record them again and yet the American songbook has become a standard fixture in middle of the road pop careers precisely because this perfect alignment of melody, lyric and emotion works every time.
Ferguson is never overwhelmed or in awe, singing with rhythmic sass and feeling. A lean, propulsive reconfiguration of What Is This Thing Called Love offers a brief glimpse at a much bolder album that could have been made with these songs and this voice.
Neil Mccormick (The Telegraph)
