A Girl Called Eddy
A Girl Called Eddy

It was Socrates who said that the unexamined life wasn't worth living and some wags have quipped that the unlived life isn't worth examining, a sentiment that A Girl Called Eddy (aka New Jersey girl Erin Moran) would probably agree with. This might be her debut album but, without wishing to be ungentlemanly, she isn't exactly some wide-eyed ingenue. She lived through years of crappy jobs, marriage, divorce, and the death of her mother before she felt she had something to say musically. But while the voice of experience does count for something, this is such a wonderful record you might be little peeved that she waited so damn long to make it. Put this on and you're transported to some magical universe where Dusty Springfield is reborn with the songwriting gifts of Carole King. Like Dusty, Eddy can sing a ballad with such emotional intimacy you can almost hear the sound of her mascara running. Add to that the aching purity of Karen Carpenter and the bruised quiver of Chrissie Hynde and you've got a voice that can turn even the hardest heart to jelly. That alone is enough to make her special but she also writes gorgeous songs like "Heartache" and "Somebody Hurt You" to which she brings her experience of life's battles and sings with such tenderness it sounds like she's running her fingers through your hair. The sparkling production of Richard Hawley dresses her melancholy compositions up in elegant clothes of Burt Bacharach-ian sophistication, and the few "loud" numbers like "Golden" are given all the widescreen drama of a big Roy Orbison tearjerker. Poised beautifully between the classy "adult pop" of the 1960s and confessional singer-songwriter albums of the 70s, this will mostly find a home among people old enough to remember vinyl. The sleeve has even been given a faux worn and battered look meant to evoke a classic, much-played old album found in a junk shop or a dusty box in the garage, and the portrait of a solitary Eddy on the cover gives off a major Laura Nyro-Bobby Gentry vibe. But Eddy and Hawley are only inspired by the past, not slaves to it — the feel here is of classicism, not nostalgia. You might come away from this thinking "they don't make 'em like that anymore" but the truth is that talents like Eddy are rare commodities in any era. [Official Site]
Let It Die
Feist

The chances are that you didn't hear the best single of last summer. "Mushaboom" by Canadian Leslie Feist was a pretty, folksy ode to living in a big house in the country that recalled Joni Mitchell in her more playful moments. But despite being a hit in Europe it wasn't released in the States and her album "Let It Die" is only now making a very tardy appearance here after being released everywhere else last year. Feist has something of an indie rock pedigree, having played with By Divine Right, Broken Social Scene and electroclashers Peaches, but she's traded PJ Harvey for Francoise Hardy (hey, that rhymes!) with this album recorded in Paris that juggles folk, pop, jazz, R&B, and French chanson. She has denied that this is a "Parisian" record but its carefree, laissez-faire approach and coquettish charm does have an undeniable Gallic Je ne sais quoi about it. The laid back production puts the spotlight firmly on Fiest's warm, inviting voice and it's her radiant performance that keeps this album together as it goes wandering down different musical avenues. She's kittenish on finger-clicking loungey swingers like "Leisure Suite" and genuinely moving on `ballads like the spine-tingling "Lonely, Lonely." Her magpie qualities verge on the dilettantish with cover versions of such chalk-and-cheese songs as The Bee Gees' "Inside Out" and Dick Haymes 1940s ballad "Now At Last" but she manages to be a foxy disco siren and a smoky cabaret chanteuse and pull both off with aplomb. She contains multitudes! With all her hopscotching about it's not surprising that she trips and falls on her behind a few times, "One Evening" is rather ho-hum Sade-Lite R&B and the twee "Tout Doucement" shows that, like the movie Amelie, there's a fine line between charming and irritating. If she wants it, this album could make Feist the indie Norah Jones. It's soft, jazzy charm could fit snugly in the contemporary adult easy listening niche or whatever they call it these days. So you'll probably be hearing this in every Starbucks, Borders and Pottery Barn across the country this summer, and somehow I just know "Mushaboom" is going to end up in a Gap commercial. [Official Site]
I'm A Loser
Doris Duke

In the world of vintage R&B having the late British soul evangelist Dave Godin declare an album was the greatest ever made was like getting a blessing from the Pope. The object of his affection was Doris Duke's intense 1969 debut "I'm A Loser" which has finally been re-issued in a package that also includes her second album and some tracks she cut earlier in her career. Produced by Atlantic Records alumni Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams with gritty Southern Soul backing by the mighty Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, "I'm A Loser" has been called soul music's first concept album, not because it has any twenty minute-long songs about wizards and spaceships, but because it has a consistent theme which you can basically sum up as "women and the bastards they love." Long before Millie Jackson made a career out of it, this album treated love, sex, marriage, and infidelity in an adult and brutally frank way, with Doris playing the woman who always draws the short straw. She has an urgent, desperate tone to her voice that wrings out every drop of emotion, on tracks like the torch song "He's Gone" and the melodrama "I Don't Care Anymore" she sounds as if she's teetering on the edge of an emotional abyss. This is soul so deep you can't see the bottom. Sadly Doris drew the short straw in real life too as "I'm A Loser" only just barely scraped into the R&B Top 40 and her record company went bust. So it was probably with a little bitter sarcasm that she called the follow-up "A Legend In Her Own Time" which, unfortunately, was an even bigger flop. While not as consistent as her debut it does have its moments, especially the country-soul ballad "If She's Your Wife (Who Am I?)" where Doris turns in a wrenching vocal performance, I don't think I've ever heard a singer sound so utterly crushed and desolate. Apparently Aretha Franklin used to refuse to sing torch songs because she didn't want to play the weak woman pining for a man and Doris could really have used some of that sisterly positivity and R-E-S-P-E-C-T on these albums. Though they contain some of the most astonishing, emotionally-charged soul music you'll ever hear, listening to her suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune time and time again gets a bit much and some light with the gloom would be welcome. I'm not asking for chocolates and flowers and puppies, but sometimes life does have a happy ending.

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