KATIE MELUA: "The Ultimate Collection"

Original released on CD Digipak BMG 538433672

(EU 2018, October 5)

"You Never Can Tell" By BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

CARLA BRUNI: "Little French Songs"

Original released on CD Barclay 060253731615

(FRANCE 2013, April 1)

"Little French Songs" is Carla Bruni's first album since 2008's "Comme Si de Rien N'était", and her first outing as France's former first lady. Reception in the English-speaking press on the European side of the Atlantic has been middling at best, while in France the album has been greeted with more enthusiasm. The truth may lie somewhere in between for most, but for those with at least a working knowledge of the French chanson tradition, both in its formal sense and through its various revolutionary phases, they will find that most of this fits squarely inside it (though that knowledge is not necessary to enjoy the album). One can hear Bruni's love of artists from Georges Brassens and Charles Trénet to Pierre Barouh and Serge Gainsbourg in these simple yet elegant tunes. She wrote most of the album herself. Its economic production is driven by a nylon-string guitar in the forefront, adorned by some sparse brass here, a minimal harmonium or Wurlitzer there, a drum or percussion elsewhere. On "Mon Raymond," she celebrates her husband Nicolas Sarkozy while utterly - and comedically - humanizing him. By contrast, she wryly skewers his successor French President François Hollande ("Le Pingouin") as boring and without personality - indulging in sass befitting Brigitte Fontaine. 

Her breezy yet moving adaptation of Trénet's nugget "Dolce Francia" contains a spoken word introduction with Taofik Farah's guitar and Ballake Sissoko's kora atop a breezy violincello and shakers. She makes this classic her own. "Prière," a co-write between Bruni and Julien Clerc, channels Brassens' inspiration in her own idiosyncratic way. One can hear Barouh and Gainsbourg in the Caribbean-cum-samba rhythmic twist in "Chez Keith et Anita." It's a clever song about finding peace and quiet at the home of Keith Richards and former girlfriend Anita Pallenberg circa 1970 - Marianne Faithful is apparently also there, smelling of vanilla. Sissoko also appears on the lithe, beautiful "Liberté" near the set's end. This is not a political song - at least not in the usual sense. Here, as chanson meets the bohemian cafe, freedom is tender, bittersweet, and regarded through the gaze of memory. "Little French Songs" is exactly what it says it is. Bruni's songwriting is deceptive in its limpid simplicity, full of reverie, wit, and the directness of her breathy voice, which is well traveled but contains delight at its heart. (Thom Jurek in AllMusic)

PAUL McCARTNEY LIVE IN TOKYO, 2013

MADELEINE PEYROUX - "The Blue Room"

Original released on CD Universal 0602537242689

(US 2013, March 5)

On "The Blue Room", her second Decca recording, Madeleine Peyroux and producer Larry Klein re-examine the influence of Ray Charles' revolutionary 1962 date, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. They don't try to re-create the album, but remake some of its songs and include others by composers whose work would benefit from the genre-blurring treatment Charles pioneered. Bassist David Pilch, drummer Jay Bellerose, guitarist Dean Parks, and pianist/organist Larry Goldings are the perfect collaborators. Most these ten tracks feature string arrangements by Vince Mendoza. Five tunes here are reinterpretations of Charles' from MSICAWM. "Take These Chains" commences as a sultry jazz tune, and in Peyroux's vocal, there is no supplication - only a demand. Parks' pedal steel moves between sounding like itself and a clarinet. Goldings' alternating B-3 and Rhodes piano offer wonderful color contrast and make it swing. Her take on "Bye Bye Love" feels as if it's being narrated to a confidante, and juxtaposes early Western swing with a bluesy stroll. A rock guitar introduces "I Can't Stop Loving You," but Peyroux's phrasing has more country-blues in it than we've heard from her before. The use of a trumpet in "Born to Lose" and "You Don't Know Me," with Mendoza's dreamy strings, allow for Peyroux to deliver her most stylized jazz performances on the set. Buddy Holly's "Changing All Those Changes" contains the same happy bump as the original, but there isn't any ache in Peyroux's vocal; it's all declaration. 

The simmering, busted blues in Randy Newman's "Guilty" reveals he could have written the tune for Little Willie John or Patsy Cline. Both singer and producer prove that John Hartford's "Gentle on My Mind" can be as much a jazz-pop tune as a country song. The shuffling train motion in Glen Campbell's iconic version has been traded for a less hurried pace. Peyroux employs her Billie Holiday-influenced phrasing to excellent effect. Mendoza's restrained strings color the tune from a simple, directly conveyed love song to an intimate reverie offered over time and distance; Goldings' shimmering piano and Parks' ringing guitar make it nearly elastic. Warren Zevon's "Desperadoes Under the Eaves" illustrates better than any selection here that Charles' approach to country to transcend genre and tell universal stories was indeed genius. Peyroux, her band, and Mendoza's strings offer a nearly cinematic legend of old Hollywood envisioned through the eyes of one of its most seasoned and heartbroken denizens. The singer leans out of the arrangements and into the depths of her heart, conveying loss and loneliness to the listener directly. "The Blue Room" is a brave experiment, but one that pays off handsomely. For anyone who hasn't spent time with Charles' classic country recordings, it doesn't matter, because what's here stands confidently on its own; for those who have, that experience will provide an additional reward. (Thom Jurek in AllMusic)