Thursday, January 26, 2012
Sue Raney - Heart and Soul
From Sue's first album, recorded in 1958 when she was 17 or 18, what could have been better than to be signed to Capitol Records & paired with arranger Nelson Riddle at the peak of his talents?
When Your Lover Has Gone is quite a romantic album in an innocent (not naive) way, this truly is a teenager singing. But Sue already has the cool Fifties style where less is more, her trademark glissando of sliding up to a note, & a sense of jazzy swing she's just getting a handle on & brought to wise maturity over the decades - she's still working, 1958 wasn't a great time to begin this kind of singing career. Rock was taking over the charts, nightclubs were closing, Vegas hadn't exploded, & older, established singers were still performing, My friend Rosemary Conte, a lovely jazzy singer who got in the business around the same time as Sue, gave this one a thumb's up. That's an endorsement.
