BRENDA LEE: EMOTIONS (1961)
1) Emotions; 2) Just Another
Lie; 3) If You Love Me (Really Love Me); 4) Crazy Talk; 5) When I Fall In Love;
6) Around The World; 7) Swanee River Rock; 8) Will You Love Me Tomorrow; 9) I'm
Learning About Love; 10) Georgia On My Mind; 11) Cry; 12) I'm In The Mood For
Love.
Same stylistics, same production team, same
relentless perfectionism (seven
different recording sessions now, after the six of This Is... Brenda), same balanced mix of bearded oldies, recent
oldies, and freshly written corporate material. The only difference: out of 12
songs, two-thirds are ballads, fair and square, bringing that train still
farther and farther away from the girl's rockabilly past — and, considering
that the title track predictably made it into the Top 10, this line of development
only seemed more and more viable as the months and years went by and the
«little Miss Dynamite» was all set to grow into a «mature» Nashville queen.
Fortunately, the Nashville production team
still keeps a firm grip on the limits of good taste, so that the strings are
rarely overbearing, and sometimes actually border on delicious — ʽJust Another
Lieʼ, a new number loosely based on some of Chuck Willis' tunes, instead of
formulaic orchestration, has a haunting solo violin part that comes in through
an imaginary archway midway through, and gives the tune a little bit of a
Stephane Grappelli feel.
The title track does have such a powerhouse delivery
that its choice for a single was understandable: the musical backing is
non-descript, but this is the first time in Brenda's career when she seems to
perfectly understand the power of dynamic modulation, and, true to the song's
title, tries to convey not one, but several different types of emotions over
those three minutes — listen to the big kick of "EMOTIONS, please set me
free!..." after the first few quiet bars of the chorus, and you'll see
what I mean.
Elsewhere, she takes on Edith Piaf (ʽIf You
Love Meʼ), understandably, with little success, but then again, one shouldn't
necessarily be aware that the song is originally a French tune; the Shirelles
and Carole King (ʽWill You Love Me Tomorrowʼ), with far more success, even
though I do believe nobody ever invested as much personal feeling into that
song as its original author; and Ray Charles (we won't be saying «Hoagy
Carmichael», really), with ʽGeorgia On My Mindʼ — a competent version, but only
weathered old men can really do justice to that song (or, at least, those who
successfully pretend to be weathered
old men, like Richard Manuel from The Band).
Of the four upbeat tunes, ʽCrazy Talkʼ is a fun
little wannabe-classic, where guitar, sax, and vocals do indeed come together
in a bit of «crazy talk»; and the B-side ʽI'm Learning About Loveʼ, despite the
suspicious title, is in fact a jumpy pop-rocker, with the most vivacious tone
on the album and a welcome return of the old «pirate growl» from Little Miss
Dynamite.
So, on the whole, one might subtract one or two
of the more faceless ballads (like ʽWhen I Fall In Loveʼ), or smirk a bit about
such childish cover material as the theme tune from Around The World In 80 Days, but Emotions still delivers... well, emotions. feeling glossy, but lively and cheery, and for that, gets
its duly thumbs
up.
Check "Emotions" (CD) on Amazon
I don't know... By the time The Band did "Georgia On My Mind", you could call them weathered old men (by the standards of the '70s, 33 years was pretty old... remember that whole crisis Pete Townshend went through when he was three years younger than that on The Who by Numbers?)
ReplyDeleteYeah, or how during the Stones' 70s tours the media were fixated on how they were rocking in their 30s.
ReplyDeleteI don't care what Rolling Stone or anyone else has to say about it; when you're 33 you are not old. How could you be, you're not even middle-aged!
ReplyDeleteThat all started with the "don't trust anyone over 30" BS in the 1960s. Nowadays it's just "don't trust anyone", lol.
DeleteBy the way, Ray Charles was only 30 when he recorded his classic version of "Georgia", meaning that if Richard Manuel was only pretending to be a weathered old man when he sung it, Ray must have been pretending even harder.
ReplyDeleteOf course, we might say that being born poor and black in rural pre-war America, going blind at an early age and having your mother, father and brother die before you're 16 will tend to both weather and age a man prematurely.
Or maybe we can just say that "weathered old man" is more of an emotional state than a physical one, one which actually weathered old men might have easier access to than say, wide-eyed young girls, but which they by no means have exclusive rights to.
Call me weird, but my absolute favorite version of "Georgia" is Billie's, and she was around 30 at the time as well.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFtENRFrpRQ