Famous Blue Raincoat by Jennifer Warnes

The 1986 Famous Blue Raincoat must have been the most successful album released by Jennifer Warned thus far. This is evident by the release of the Famous Blue Raincoat: 20^th Anniversary Edition this year.

Famous Blue Raincoat: 20^th Anniversary Edition (2007).

It is also a test CD or LP in the audiophile arena that almost everyone must have one to showcase one's hi-fi in reproducing female vocals. The best sounding CD pressing comes from Attic Records based in Canada, and I found it to be the same for the LP pressing on the Attic Records label. Classic Records reissued this album on limited edition LP but I found it to be richer at the bottom end but lacking in the sweet mid-range and silky-smooth high frequency found in the Attic Records pressing.

Top left: Attic Records LP; top right: Classic Records LP; bottom: Attic Records CD. These are extremely hard to find nowadays and I'm lucky to have all of them.

Top left: Attic Records LP; top right: Attic Records LP cover; bottom: Attic Records CD.

This is my favourite track ripped from my Attic Records CD, Song of Bernadette.

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.