I still have that jazz bug crawling all around inside of me. So tonight, I decided to check out somebody else in the category of sophisti-pop music—a talented singer named Julia Fordham. I bet there's thousands of listeners out there who are way ahead of me when it comes to this lady, as I'm just getting started at the ground level with her. And as I just told my friend Kim, I always like to begin in the 80's when I start checking out an unfamiliar artist who has a long discography, so Julia's self-titled album looked like the perfect place to start. I don't even know if there's a better word than 'perfect' to describe what my ears have experienced here, but I can now say that I've found one more terrific gem in the seemingly bottomless treasure trove of 80's music! I can thank SWING OUT SISTER for that; I used that group to help me in discovering similar artists to them, and there was Julia Fordham's name near the top of the list right up there with the likes of Lisa Stansfield and Basia Trzetrzelewska (I always have to copy and paste Basia's last name because there's no way in the world I could ever spell it correctly from memory). I'd even say she sounds like the ex-EURYTHMICS star Annie Lennox—that rich soulful voice that has a way of filling the heart. I can hear Annie's voice loud and clear on my favorite song, "The Comfort Of Strangers"; can you hear it too? "My Lover's Keeper" was great all the way through, then once it was over, all I could muster was a breathless 'Wow!' wanted to play it again right then and there, but instead proceeded along with "Cocooned", which is one of those lite dinner theater jazz numbers that doesn't even sound like it was recorded in the 80's. I'm always a sucker for those emotionally mellow piano selections; Julia almost brought me to tears with with one—"Behind Closed Doors". A beautiful performance; just wish it wasn't so short. Her strongest performances include "Woman Of The 80's" and the extremely lively concluding track, "Unconditional Love", which I ended up playing three times because the backing vocals and the accompanying funk/jazz sounds are so unbelievably great:
1. Happy Ever After
2. The Comfort Of Strangers
3. Few Too Many
4. Invisible War
5. My Lover's Keeper
6. Cocooned
7. Where Does The Time Go?
8. Woman of The 80's
9. The Other Woman
10. Behind Closed Doors
11. Unconditional Love
1 comments:
Love Julia Fordham, her voice is beautiful and her songs amazing.... Eah one of her albums just get better with age... Thanks for this and all the other posts!!!!
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