Search - Chris Connor :: Warm Cool: Atlantic Years

Finally!

05/02/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm a Chris Connor fan who started collecting her records with her first Bethlehem releases when I was 13. I even have V-Discs of her with Claude Thornhill. Her years at Atlantic were heady--each album a revelation of her unequaled knowledge of American popular music, her unfailing taste, her beautiful voice, inventiveness, inimitable use of time and silence, her surrounding herself with the best musicians, arrangers, producers and engineers. She made a lot of money for Atlantic and they responded with beautiful packaging and promotion. Chris Connor and Will Friedwald have made a nearly perfect selection of songs for this collection, including some ultrarare Atlantic singles (but there are more and they deserve a set of their own). This is a rhapsodic collection beginning to end, mastered beautifully, presented lovingly. After decades of being a Chris Connor devotee I finally got to meet her and wasn't surprised to find a totally natural, very warm and friendly, very beautiful (tall, blonde, always elegantly costumed) lady who--unlike (sadly) so many singers--is versed in her own history and can answer those fan-type questions with ease. If you are not familiar with Chris Connor, do get this set. You will listen to it again and again and marvel at this great, inimitable talent. Although Anita O'Day, June Christy and Chris Connor are often spoken of in one breath, they really are three separate and quite different artists vocally, stylistically and interpretively. They also respected and liked each other's music through the years all three were scoring hit album after hit album. "Warm Cool" is all hits--don't miss it!"