Bonnie Guitar - Intimate Session - The Velvet-Lounge (2012) torrent

Bonnie Guitar - 2012 - Intimate Session - The Velvet-Lounge (Bear Family BCD-16878)


In the early 1960s, Bonnie Guitar was briefly signed to RCA, though not much resulted from the association aside from a couple of singles. Both of those singles are included on this 14-track compilation, which has everything she recorded for the label at the time over the course of two separate sessions in Hollywood on July 18, 1961 and January 24, 1962. Combining the four tracks from the two singles with ten previously unreleased cuts (though two of those are alternate takes), it adds up to something of a missing album in Guitar's discography. While it's useful in filling in a gap in her recording career, it's not hard to see why RCA might not have been too excited by the material at the time. It's a little bit pop, a little bit country, and an even littler bit of rock & roll, with a very early-'60s pop sound to the production, using violins on the 1961 songs and choral backing vocals on the 1962 session. Some of the numbers tread slightly on the Nashville country-pop territory that Patsy Cline was working at the time, despite having been done in Hollywood. But though there's backup by some Wrecking Crew stalwarts like guitarist Billy Strange, arrangements by Perry Botkin, Jr., and little known compositions by Harlan Howard, Jeff Barry, and Hal David (who co-wrote "If My Tears Could Talk" with Sherman Edwards), the songs just aren't that interesting. It's early-'60s sentimental crossover pop that doesn't rise above a mild temperature, due as much to Guitar's average vocals as the adequate compositions, a couple of which she wrote or co-wrote. "An Old Fashioned Love" slips in some odd criticism of consumer culture ("television with its magic eye tells where to go and what to buy"), but it's actually one of the more contrived and less impressive efforts. ~ Richie Unterberger EU collection from the American Country/Pop vocalist. In 1957, Bonnie Guitar recorded the haunting original version of 'Dark Moon'. Two years later, she signed with RCA Victor and recorded several sessions with a small band of Los Angeles session veterans, augmented by voices on one session, and strings on another. The result was some of the most blissfully poignant vocals ever committed to tape. On a par with Julie London, Peggy Lee, or any of the era's finest female artists. Singing in her languid ultra-lounge style and playing her white Gretsch Country Club guitar, Bonnie brought her distinctive, sultry vocal style to songs that were originally hits for The Ink Spots and Sanford Clark plus newer material from young songwriters like Hal David, Jeff Barry, and Harlan Howard. To that, she added a couple of her own originals. Four of these sides were released as singles; the rest remained unreleased in their original form until now. With new input from Bonnie Guitar, Todd Everett's liner notes tell the whole story. Bear Family. Liner Note Author: Todd Everett. Recording information: RCA Victor Studio, Hollywood, CA (01/24/1962); RCA Victor Studio, Hollywood, CA (07/18/1961).