GrownUpMusic.com Recommended!
Larry Harris | Los Angeles, Nirvana | 12/09/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Cassandra Wilson is an original. After years of swinging with a trio, she switched gears and turned to a less traditional sound: lots of guitar and percussion. The result is an earthy fusion of jazz, folk, pop, blues and R&B. When you hear the soul in this woman's husky voice and the way she wraps her style around a lyric, you'll understand why Time Magazine declared her "America's Best Singer." On this CD,
Wilson applies her golden touch to Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay," Sting's "Fragile" and even the untouchable "Crazy.""
The preeminent living interpreter of American popular song
Andy Plymale | Richland, WA United States | 03/24/2005
(4 out of 5 stars)
"A jazz singer with the heart of a folk singer and the soul of a blues singer, Wilson also has exceptional taste in song, along with original arranging skills. Wilson also seemingly has no musical prejudices. She is equally at home interpreting the music of the Beatle-mimic Monkees ("Last Train to Clarksville", New Moon Daughter) as that of blues pioneer Robert Johnson ("Come on in My Kitchen," Blue Light `Til Dawn). Likewise, she is equally comfortable recording a song by country icon Willie Nelson ("Crazy," Glamoured) as one by outspoken jazz purist Abby Lincoln ("Throw it Away," Glamoured). And she is as comfortable with folk rock songwriter Bob Dylan ("Lay Lady Lay," Glamoured) as jazz composer Miles Davis ("Seven Steps to Heaven," Traveling Miles). Moreover, she can make the most banal seeming material sound profound (as in her haunting, bluesy take on "Last Train to Clarksville"). Wilson can make you appreciate songs and songwriters that you might otherwise not give a second thought, such as when she recorded "Witchita Lineman " (Belly of the Sun) by the underrated `60s and `70s songwriter Jimmy Webb, composer, for better or worse, of the song "McArthur Park, " ("someone left the cake out in the rain . . . "). Part of Wilson's unprejudicial outlook on music can be explained by her southern upbringing, and on her latest CD, Glamoured, Wilson returned to her Mississippi roots both figuratively and literally, as she recorded many of the tracks in Jackson, including the Muddy Waters song "Honey Bee." After the completion of the Mississippi sessions, Wilson returned to New York, where she enlisted the help of Italian guitarist, composer, and producer Fabrizio Sotti for the remainder of the tracts, including the Sting song "Fragile.""
Jazz-funk-country blues captures calm of night in a swamp.
Frank Camm | Northern Virginia | 03/22/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Applies her now distinctive fusion-Delta steel, jazz, deep funkiness, and the voice-to a wide range of songs, making them all her own. Many reveal the originals only with close attention. Most coherent collection of her settings that I can recall-all as quiet but insistent and vital as the sound of your blood passing in your veins. The jazz-funk-country blues captures the calm of night in a swamp, but also the vague foreboding of a primordial presence there. Lyrics of tr 1 by Sting capture the mood of the cd as a whole: "Like rain from the stars, how fragile we are." That said, I repeatedly hear her voice as another instrument in the mix before I hear any words. [53:29]"