Thursday, March 11, 2010

Record of the Month - Classic

Another installment of a disk I have enjoyed over the years. I'm trying to keep the Record of the Month posts to be fairly new releases. Classics are going to be ones that are at least 5 years old.


I think I own most of kd lang's albums, and while she clearly has an incredible voice, I find her Shadowland disk to be her strongest of the lot.

Released in 1988, I first heard her cut "Black Coffee" off of Reprise's Just Say Yo compilation disk and I went out and got what was her second album - and one that was expertly produced by Owen Bradley, who furthered or helped create the careers of Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Brenda Lee, etc.

For all it's twang, it is still an extremely lush recording - see "Black Coffee". Bradley and lang struck gold with this collaboration, and I don't think she matched

The disk opens with a cover of Chris Isaak's "Western Stars", which is just flawless and way better than his version. And then each of the other 11 songs make Shadowland a winner - even if it only about 34 minutes long.

For me, the highlight immediately became "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes". The pace, the phrasing.....the breathing technique it takes to sing along......and I do. You know I do.

Shadowland is totally worth looking into.

1 comment:

Jonny said...

Isn't that your cousin David's FB profile pic?