Music for Grownups: Peggy Lee, Eliza Gilkyson
By: Richard Gehr | Source: AARP.org | 2008-05-27
Richard Gehr is a veteran music critic based in New York City.
Peggy Lee
"The Lost '40s & '50s Capitol Masters"
Collectors' Choice/EMI
The "girl singer" in Benny Goodman's band was only 23 when she cut her first single for Capitol Records. Her convincing blues number, "Ain't Goin' No Place," opens this double-disc treasure trove of 39 Peggy Lee songs, recorded between 1944 and 1952. None have appeared previously on CD—including a dozen tracks unreleased anywhere until now. Although she could have made a career in any number of niches, the prolific and influential singer- songwriter's wistful voice cuts across styles. Newly unearthed Lee gems here include the variously hued ballads "A Cottage for Sale," "I've Had My Moments," and "Music, Maestro, Please"; the gospel- tinged, novelty tune, "Love Ye"; and a fabulous version of the timeless standard, "A Hundred Years From Today."
Eliza Gilkyson
"Beautiful World"
Red House
The Texas singer-songwriter transforms a torchy tune that could have been written by Peggy Lee into a planetary lament in "Unsustainable." It is the concluding song on a luscious, angry, and inspired album combining hope and grief in equal measures. The 50-something Eliza Gilkyson editorializes as hard as she folk-rocks in songs such as "The Party's Over," "The Great Correction," and "Runaway Train"—all of which depict a national and global environment veering seriously off- track. Yet the long, languorous title track takes a space traveler's perspective on the Earth, while the bucolic "Wildewood Spring" imagines Texas hippies and the children of their more conservative brethren floating together in a natural refuge. Beautiful world indeed.
"The Lost '40s & '50s Capitol Masters"
Collectors' Choice/EMI
The "girl singer" in Benny Goodman's band was only 23 when she cut her first single for Capitol Records. Her convincing blues number, "Ain't Goin' No Place," opens this double-disc treasure trove of 39 Peggy Lee songs, recorded between 1944 and 1952. None have appeared previously on CD—including a dozen tracks unreleased anywhere until now. Although she could have made a career in any number of niches, the prolific and influential singer- songwriter's wistful voice cuts across styles. Newly unearthed Lee gems here include the variously hued ballads "A Cottage for Sale," "I've Had My Moments," and "Music, Maestro, Please"; the gospel- tinged, novelty tune, "Love Ye"; and a fabulous version of the timeless standard, "A Hundred Years From Today."
Eliza Gilkyson
"Beautiful World"
Red House
The Texas singer-songwriter transforms a torchy tune that could have been written by Peggy Lee into a planetary lament in "Unsustainable." It is the concluding song on a luscious, angry, and inspired album combining hope and grief in equal measures. The 50-something Eliza Gilkyson editorializes as hard as she folk-rocks in songs such as "The Party's Over," "The Great Correction," and "Runaway Train"—all of which depict a national and global environment veering seriously off- track. Yet the long, languorous title track takes a space traveler's perspective on the Earth, while the bucolic "Wildewood Spring" imagines Texas hippies and the children of their more conservative brethren floating together in a natural refuge. Beautiful world indeed.
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