The best of the best!
Rodney A. Soares | Tulare, CA | 08/20/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"By combining the best qualities of singer/songwriters like Carole King, Jimmy Webb, Carly Simon, and Randy Newman, Jude Johnstone continues to create intelligent music for those who demand substance in their music. Mr. Sun continues the jazz and torch-flavored pop arrangements of Jude's previous cd, Blue Light, and builds on what that cd achieved. This cd lacks none of the beautiful lyricism and stellar vocal and musical performances that Blue Light showcased and includes exceptional performances by such A-list musicians as Freddy Koella, David Piltch, Danny Frankel, Stephen Bishop, Maxayn Lewis, and Inga Swearingen, just to name a few.
The cd's title track is probably Jude's most upbeat and catchy song to date and will have you instantly singing along. This song, as well as the following track, "Over Easy," sails along on a tropical wave of lilting samba and mambo rhythms that would've made Antonio Carlos Jobim proud.
One of the cd's highlights, the track "Don't Tell Me That It's Over," seems to be an answer to one of Blue Light's stand-out tracks, "That's Why I'm Leaving You." In this new track, the jilted lover pleads: "Just say it isn't true/And let me make it up to you/ Just tell me you're a little blue/ Don't tell me that it's over." The song is an intelligent, adult break-up song, painfully portraying someone desperately clinging to a crumbling relationship.
This theme is further explored in "Sunday Evening" (another stand-out track featuring Stephen Bishop's flawless backing vocals and a stunning guitar solo by Mark Goldenberg.) Jude sings: "I'm waiting up for you/ Just like I said I'd do/ Watchin' the late night news/ And it's feeling like the final call." The lyrical imagery of this song is so strong that one can almost see the flicker of the TV screen light.
Following this track is the unapologetically romantic, "When My Ship Comes In." Over beautiful and haunting ship sounds and chimes, Jude sings some of the most romantic lyrics ever to have come from her pen.
The track, "Winding Back My Heart," contains some of Jude's most poetic and haunting lyrics: "I can stand up straight like a lamp-post/ while the waves wash over me/ I can turn myself into a ghost/ if you want me to be." As is the case in every track on this cd, Jude paints a vivid picture for the listener through her poetic lyrics.
The closing elegiac track, "One For Us," is the perfect closer for this cd, the perfect break-up song, and arguably one of the best songs in Jude's impressive catalog. The amount of heartbreak being conveyed in this song is almost palpable. Jude sings: "... I would never disappear/ If I could only keep you here." Jude's delivery of these lyrics in a voice dripping with regret and loss, makes listening to this track almost seem like eavesdropping on a woman drowning her sorrows at a bar. When Jude ends the song with the refrain, "Here's one for us/And one to watch you go," anyone listening knows that the benchmark for break-up songs has officially been set.
By listening to these 11 tracks, the listener is taken on a trip through both the intoxicating highs of being in love to the abysmal lows of losing that love. Only Jude Johnstone could make even the saddest parts of the trip so pleasurable.
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Track Listings (11) - Disc #1