Search - Nancy Wilson :: Best of

Not her hits but still a collection of some of Wilson's best

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 09/11/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Nancy Wilson has had a long and distinguished career as one of the most stylish and sultry vocalists of her generation, even hosting her own Emmy-winning variety series on NBC, "The Nancy Wilson Show," as well as being a frequent guest performer on other shows. Best known as a jazz performer who worked with the likes of Cannonball Adderley and George Shearing, Wilson also crosed over into Pop and R&B, as evidenced by this import collection from EMI Gold. Consequently, this is not really a greatest hits collection where you will pick up Wilson's songs that did the best on the Billboard charts, which would be "That's What I Want For Christmas" (#6) and "(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am" (311). Instead you will find her covers of a wide variety of songs, including adult hits like "(I Left My Heart) In San Francisco" and "Moon River," Broadway tunes like "What Kind of Fool am I" and "As Long as He Needs Me," and rock songs like "Yesterday" and "Son of a Preacher Man." So, while you would certainly want to pick up a standard Nancy Wilson hits collection, this is an excellent choice as a second album which will give you lots of great songs with little or no overlap with the other. It amply demonstrates Wilson's range, as she proves herself equally adept at doing Gershwin's "Somebody to Watch Over Me as she is "(Uptight) Everything is Alright.""