BARBARA LEWIS: IT'S MAGIC (1966)
1) It's Magic; 2) The Shadow
Of Your Smile; 3) Let It Be Me; 4) Quiet Nights; 5) Since I Fell For You; 6)
Don't Forget About Me; 7) I Only Miss Him When I Think Of Him; 8) Yesterday; 9)
He's So Bad; 10) A Taste Of Honey; 11) Sorrow; 12) Who Can I Turn To.
You gotta love those old style liner notes —
"Each cut weaves a different spell, and one is made heady with the potion
that is the liquid voice of Barbara Lewis — here curving around a note,
wavering just a hairbreadth, there full and round one moment, trailing off the
next, now breathy, now misty, now pleading, now desiring, now sad, now
exciting, but all musical", writes New York-based disc jockey Enoch
Gregory, alias "The Dixie Drifter", in his desperate bid to help
Atlantic sell a few more copies of Barbara Lewis' fourth (third?) LP. But even
that kind of sweet-talking did not help — fact is, in mid-1966 pop and R&B
audiences were not nearly as entranced about curving around notes and
misty-pleading-desiring vocals, certainly not if they were so totally
old-fashioned in style as Barbara's singing is on this album.
For It's
Magic, the label commands Barbara Lewis to morph into Doris Day — starting
with the title track — and then turn everything
into Doris Day, whether it be Antonio Carlos Jobim, Carole King, or the Beatles
in the beginning. She's not too bad as Doris Day, but compared to these
sugar-sweet arrangements and performances, even Doris Day comes across as
Madonna — so completely purged they are of any humor, irony, sexiness, and,
well, everything that we usually appreciate in classic R&B. It's like
Atlantic were going totally anti-Atlantic here, marketing a singer for the
tastes of a respectable white middle class family circa 1952 instead of...
well, it's not as if respectable white middle class families had completely
vanished off the surface of the Earth by 1966, but they sure as hell weren't
likely to go hunting for Barbara Lewis, either.
It is not clear to understand the logic of this
LP, especially considering that it came right off the heels of Barbara's last
truly big hit, ʽMake Me Your Babyʼ, a grand Phil Spector-like lush soul number
with towering strings, angelic vocal harmonies, and a vocal performance that at
least showed genuine yearning and passion, even if the song itself, written by
Helen Miller and Roger Atkins, was little more than a third-rate Shirelles /
Ronettes pastiche. But compared to what we got here on the LP... well, enough
with the comparisons. If you want a schmaltz version of ʽYesterdayʼ, Matt
Monro is probably the way to go (at least he was there first). As far as my
earbuds are concerned, there's absolutely nothing on these songs bar raw timbre
and technique, so I'll just have to stack my thumbs down against Encoh
Gregory's verdict, and let time choose the winner. Oh, wait, I do believe it
already has.
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