Kina Grannis & Boyce Avenue

I have come across this great singer-songwriter called Kina Grannis on Youtube lately. Her music has a very rhythmic sense yet easy listening. I couldn't find her recorded album locally, so I guess I'll have to order it from Amazon.

She's also featured in Boyce Avenue's cover versions which are also incredibly performed!

Boyce Avenue's cover version of "Superman" is also superb. He can really sing!

Enjoy the music!

Photo Slide Shows on F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

I have put a series of photos I shot sometime last year which I called F.R.I.E.N.D.S., into a photo slide show. I like the results very much and I would like to share it with all my readers and subscribers here.

The song I chose is a cover version of 'Close to You' performed by Olivia Ong.

Happy viewing!

Photo Slide Shows

I have been learning and playing around with photo slide show creator lately. It is quite fun doing it. Coupled with the right music, it sets the mood just right for the photos.

The first show I created is named Café Lumière as I shot the photos in a café. Then I chose a song with a romantic and jazzy mood to spice up the cozy café environment. This song is 'It wasn't Paris, it was you' by Nancy Holloway.

My second creation is called the Sentimental Moments. I shot the photos in another café of my friend and this time I added more scene animation. The lyrics of the song that I chose coincidentally sync with the pictures well at some parts. It was not intentional but an added bonus. If you are interested in the song, it is called 'Talk to me while I'm listening' by one of my favourite Irish singers Frances Black.

The third one is In the Mood for Love of Kartrina. The song is my all time favourite, 'Baby, now that I've found you' by Alison Krauss, my favourite female country-folk singer.

Echoes of a Fallen Star

I can't remember the exact time that my brother introduced me to this singer. What I can remember is that I was mesmerised by her voice when my brother told me: "She only got popular after her death." She passed away on November 2^nd, 1996 at the very young age of 33.

Her singing skill is so versatile that she could sing blues, jazz, country, folk, world, etc. Probably due to her effortless talent that the clubs and recording labels shy away from engaging her, because she's not set up a niche for her singing career nor having a specific target group of audience.

A month after the release of her 2^nd album Live at Blues Alley, she was diagnosed with bone cancer. That's why she'd never made a hit in the music scene then.

My Eva Cassidy collection through the years.

This is the first CD of Eva Cassidy that I was introduced to her music, Live at Blues Alley. It's a live recording for her gig at a club. Most of the songs are jazz and blues genre. Her performance of Sting's Fields of Gold is just spectacular. You gotta hear it for yourself as it is beyond my ability to describe.

The second CD I acquired was Eva by Heart. The songs were collected from her scattered recordings in studios and club gigs. As I said earlier, she's no specific music style, so I just put up a track to show you her talent in singing jazz. What I can say is that she's from the school of Billie Holiday.

Some of her songs are compiled under this album called Time after Time released in 2000. She sings Cyndi Lauper's hit song Time after Time in this CD, thus the title. I'm not featuring this song here, as I want to show her country folk style in this song called Penny to My Name.

In 2002, Imagine was released with another 10 songs compiled. She sings John Lennon's Imagine in this CD. I'm featuring her jazz track You've Changed here.

The last CD in my collection is American Tune. She performs another Cyndi Lauper's melodic hit song True Colours and I'm featuring it here, just in case you miss Time after Time.

When the Fairy Godmother Sings... Mary Black

I knew about this Celtic folk singer Mary Black back in 1989 with her release of the hit album called No Frontiers in the fraternity of high-end audio. This CD was almost a 'must listen' disc in any hi-fi shop in Singapore or Hong Kong then. If any pair of speakers; a CD player; or an amplifier could not produce the sweet voice of Mary Black, that piece of equipment would be stroke of the list of an audiophile looking for an upgrade. I wasn't looking for any equipment upgrade when I was listening to No Frontiers, but I was attracted by her mesmerising voice and the Celtic mood that she portrayed. The music in this disc is just so out of this world, especially the main track and the other two named 'Columbus' and 'Vanities.'

The follow-up album riding on her success of No Frontiers was the 1991 album of Babes in the Wood with the same style of music.

Since I was so impressed by her music which can be categorised as Celtic traditional, folk or world genre, I immediately acquired her 1994 album The Holy Ground. I love the song 'Paper Friends' for the tune and the lyrics in this album.

She changed her direction from Celtic traditional music to pop music in her 1995 release of The Circus. Although I was not as impressed as I was with the three earlier albums, I still pulled out the banknotes from my wallet to pay the girl at the cashier and walked out of the CD shop with this album in my haversack; as an attempt for my devotion to her music. There is still a more traditional song in this album called 'Free as Stone.'

Her evolution from traditional music to pop music was complete in the 1997 release of Shine. As I was not so pleased with her pop music, I still appreciated her and bought the CD. I'm not saying that her pop music is not good, it is still a notch or two above the average pop singers. But I was so mesmerised in her Celtic mood earlier that it was hard for me to adept to her pop music.

I think she realised that she's losing some of her audience in her traditional music. So she threw back some traditional elements into her 1999 album Speaking with the Angel. Since then, she turned inactive in the music scene, with just some releases of 'The Best of...' and 'The Collection of...' albums thereafter.

After years of collecting her albums, I managed to trace back her music older than No Frontiers. This is the tune from her 1987 album By the Time It Gets Dark.

This is yet another older album of her released back in 1985, Without the Fanfare. All the songs are great, especially this track called 'The Crow on the Cradle.'

In fact, all her albums come with top notch recording and sound quality. Her music has accompanied me through the years and I'll continue to play these albums in my collection over the many months and moons to come in my life. It has been part of my life.

When an Angel Sings... Alison Krauss

In 1995, I watched the movie called Twister in Singapore. A scene in the movie had made a very deep impression in my memory, not because of the screenplay, but the song that was played through the radio broadcast in that scene.

If you don't know the movie 'Twister,' this is the movie poster.

I quickly went to a CD shop after watching that movie to grab a motion picture soundtrack of the movie. This is the song that I listened to over and over again after I acquired the CD, and I only got to know who Alison Krauss is then.

After that, I had been searching high and low for her albums but to no avail. CD shops in Singapore and Malaysia didn't carry any titles by Alison Krauss, and sometimes when I asked, the reaction was like: "Who's Alison Krauss?" Not until years later that I have heard another song by her in a compilation CD for audiophiles, I had another chance to listen to her very beautiful song featured in the album Now That I've Found You: A Collection.

Since then, I have been slowly acquiring her albums, some featuring the band that she is in, the Union Station. The first album that I managed to get in hand was Forget About It with the song that I like most in this album, 'It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference.'

The second CD that I've found in Singapore was New Favorites by Alison Krauss and Union Station followed by 2-CD set of Alison Krauss + Union Station: Live featuring the song made very popular by Ronan Keating and the movie Notting Hill, 'When You Say Nothing at All.' I personally like Alison Krauss' singing of this song with a flavour of folk.

Probably a year or two later, I got hold on a re-released Now That I've Found You: A Collection on audiophile pressing. Not long after that, my brother who's an architect and a part-time (weekend) LP (long-playing) records dealer in Singapore gave me an LP of this album, and it is really a gem! It's so rare even in the U.S. market that it could have easily fetched him a couple of hundred U.S. dollars, but he gave it to me instead, knowing that I'm so crazy about Alison Krauss.

Last year I found out that Alison Krauss released another album with Union Station called Lonely Runs Both Ways. I ordered it through amazon.com and was taxed 20% on it by the Malaysian Customs, still worth all the money that I've paid. Another gem! Here are the two songs that I like most in this album, 'Wouldn't Be So Bad' and 'Goodbye is All We Have.'

For over 10 years, I have been listening to all the CDs and LPs of Alison Krauss in my collection over and over again and they have never failed to touch my heart. I have heard an angel sings. Have you?

My collection on Alison Krauss.