[2017-04-28] Liza Minnelli "The Singer" and "Tropical Nights" Expanded Editions (SFE UK)

Linda · **Posted:** Wed Apr 12, 2017 2:52 am

The Singer

Description
Originally released in March 1973, ‘The Singer’ was Liza Minnelli’s 7th studio album. The album is considered a milestone in Minnelli’s recording career as it is her only studio album to reach the Top 40 on the US Billboard 200 Chart. The album also peaked at number 45 on the UK Album Chart.

When Liza went into the recording studio in late 1972 to record “The Singer”, her first album for Columbia, there was an air of expectation that it might be the album to kick-start her recording career to the same pinnacles of success that she’d attained as both an actress and as a live performer. Both the soundtrack album to “Cabaret” and the live album of her legendary television special “Liza With a Z” had recently achieved gold sales status in no short measure due to them showcasing Liza’s unique combination of talents as a singer, dancer, actress and choreographer. The challenge with “The Singer”, therefore, was to make it a comparable showcase of her singing talents alone.

The title track, ‘The Singer’, is very much in the performative vein of the “Cabaret” songbook and there is also a sense of Liza’s acting prowess in her dramatic delivery of both the Lobo written track ‘I’d Love You To Want Me’ and the James Taylor penned ‘Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight’; in both songs she deftly reverses the sex of the narrator from that of the original versions. To this end, these renditions stand out from the remainder of the album in that the other tracks are all Liza’s own take on, or cover versions of, an array of contemporaneous singer-songwriters.

The early 1970s were indeed one of the periods in which singer-songwriters were in the ascendancy and ‘The Singer’ acts as a snap-shot time-capsule that evidences the strength of that genre at that time with its inclusion of repertoire by the still famous writers of the likes of James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers and Mac Davis. Carly Simon’s classic track ‘You’re So Vain’ was also given a surprisingly funkier make-over by Liza on ‘The Singer’. All in all, a tremendous celebration of a distinct period of songwriting delivered by performer gifted with unparalleled interpretive powers at the very peak of her career!

This remastered expanded edition comes with a fully illustrated booklet containing period portraits by celebrated photographer Terry O’Neill as well as an introductory essay and four bonus tracks. Three of these tracks compile Liza’s recordings of songs from Kander & Ebb’s stage musical ‘Chicago’; their follow-up to the wildly successful “Cabaret”.

Tracklist
1. I Believe In Music
2. Use Me
3. I’d Love You To Want Me
4. Oh, Babe, What Would You Say?
5. You’re So Vain
6. Where Is The Love?
7. The Singer
8. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight
9. Dancing In The Moonlight
10. You Are The Sunshine Of My Life
11. Baby, Don’t Get Hooked On Me
Bonus Tracks:
12. Mr. Emery Won’t Be Home
13. All That Jazz from ‘Chicago’
14. My Own Best Friend from ‘Chicago’
15. Me And My Baby from ‘Chicago’

Amazon USA
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06VYC25LQ/?tag=imwan-20

Amazon UK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06VYC25LQ/?tag=imwan-21

Tropical Nights

Description
Originally released in 1977, Liza Minnelli’s 8th studio album, “Tropical Nights”, remains the disco-orientated curio of her entire discography. Contemporaneous U.S. press adverts heralding its initial release stated: “ “Tropical Nights” … Liza, with a difference. It’s Liza alright, there’s no doubt about that, but, with a difference! On Tropical Nights, her first studio album in over three years, she does what we expect from Liza; she’s still the greatest interpreter of standards and classics there is, but, she understands how to go other places. She’s made some very new material hers and hers alone.”

Grandiose Broadway style orchestrations fused with a disco vibe led American showbiz magazine ‘Variety’ to eulogise on the release of “Tropical Nights” that, “Liza Minnelli has a new sparkler. Most of the tunes are bright and uptempo, but she also has a way with a couple of gentle ones that wind the second side. Minnelli, who’s at her peak, has a big one here.”

This expanded remastered re-issue comes with five bonus tracks. ‘More Than I Like You’ and its flipside ‘Harbour’ are the two tracks from a 1974 non-album single. Then, there are three different language versions of Liza’s final single for Columbia, 1993’s ‘The Day After That’. This song reunited Liza with the showtune legends Kander and Ebb who had previously written the musicals “Cabaret”, “Chicago”, “The Rink” and “The Act” all of which Liza had been associated with. Her final song for Columbia was adapted by Liza from their then most recent work “Kiss Of A Spider Woman”; the track ‘The Day After That’ was appropriated as Liza’s call to arms to fight for a cure for AIDS and it remains one of her most affecting recordings.

Tracklist
1. Jimi Jimi
2. When It Comes Down To It
3. I Love Every Little Thing About You
4. Easy
5. I’m Your New Best Friend
6. Tropical Nights / Bali Ha’i
7. Take Me Through / I Could Come To Love You
8. Come Home Babe
9. A Beautiful Thing
Bonus Tracks:
10. More Than I Like You
11. Harbour
12. The Day After That
13. The Day After That - Spanish Version
14. The Day After That - French Version

Amazon USA
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X418PDJ/?tag=imwan-20

Amazon UK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06X418PDJ/?tag=imwan-21

[2017-04-28] Liza Minnelli "The Singer" and "Tropical Nights" Expanded Editions (SFE UK)

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