Bernadette Peters 1st Album

  Original released on LP MCA 3230 (US, 1980)

Bernadette's debut album in 1980, titled “Bernadette Peters” contained 10 songs, including "If You Were the Only Boy", "Gee Whiz" (a Top 40 hit single), "Heartquake", "Should've Never Let Him Go", "Chico's Girl", "Pearl's a Singer", "Other Lady", "Only Wounded", "I Never Thought I'd Break" and "You'll Never Know". The original cover painting by Alberto Vargas was one of his last works, created at the age of 84. According to The New York Daily News, Peters «persuaded him to do one last 'Vargas Girls' portrait... She just went to his California retreat, asked him to do one more, he looked at her and said, 'You ARE a Vargas girl!'» She kept the original painting. Rolling Stone magazine wrote of her debut album:

«Peters debuts on record as a first-rate pop torch singer: Melissa Manchester with soul, Bette Midler on pitch. Her album has already spawned the hit single "Gee Whiz," a laid-back, doo-wop version ... that makes Peters' piping, little-girl voice seem almost like a cutesy novelty. There are also a couple of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil rock tunes in which she sounds slightly trashy and out of her depth. The Peter Allen songs on side two are really more her style. In fact, the whole second half of "Bernadette Peters" is just about perfect, from the star's semi-C&W rendition of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's "Pearl's a Singer" to a wistful recap of Harry Warren and Mark Gordon's romantic "You'll Never Know."
But the best cuts are in between. "Other Lady," written by Lesley Gore(!) with Ellen Weston, tackles an age-old problem with... devastating eloquence... and Peters delivers it with the proper brooding introspection. Allen's compositions, "Only Wounded" (co-written with Carole Bayer Sager) and the torchy "I Never Thought I'd Break" (co-written with Dean Pitchford), feature the finest singing on the LP...the unusual absence of airbrushing echo places heavy demands on the chanteuse's sultry soprano. That Bernadette Peters rises to the occasion makes her performance that much more impressive.»

BERNADETTE PETERS ~ LIVE 1998

 

Original released on CD Angel 0777.7.54699.2.9

(US 1996, August 20)

"I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" is an odd collection from Bernadette Peters, one of the most popular Broadway singers of the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Instead of sticking to traditional Broadway material, Peters branches out to sing material from pop, rock, R&B and country composers like Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Sam Cooke, Lyle Lovett and Billy Joel. Although Peters is well-suited to sing Lennon/McCartney's pop material and the pseudo-show tune stylings of Joel, she sounds a bit lost when she tries grittier material like the country-rock of Dylan's title track or Sam Cooke. Still, there are enough fine performances - including a few cuts written by Stephen Sondheim and Rodgers & Hammerstein - to make the missteps tolerable for dedicated fans. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)