专 辑: What’s New (24K金碟)
专辑中文名:音信
发行时间: 2010年12月27日
唱片公司: FIM
艺 术 家: Linda Ronstadt (琳达·朗丝黛)
唱片编号: LIMPA046
专辑介绍:
乡村摇滚天后Linda Ronstadt 70年代美国pop rock的最高代表人物之一
真情、真心、真自由,亚利桑那州的真女人 Linda Ronstadt唱起歌来,彷彿置身於辽阔空旷的山谷,迴盪内心所思念的事与物,把所有感受完全赤裸、解放,无论是消遥的山歌民谣,脆弱的乡愁小调,带点劲道的乡村摇滚,微婉动人的抒情小品,还是美国、墨西哥、拉丁美洲各地的传统歌谣,她那带著民谣质朴感与摇滚乐热情的音色,总会将歌曲咀嚼出一份岁月的情感,在爱恨鲜明的独特情感歌声之外,Ronstadt更是美国摇滚图腾-The Eagles的幕后推手,堪称当代乐坛的奇女子。
Linda Ronstadt 琳达朗丝黛1946年生在美国,60年代就在好莱坞组过乐团,1971年的时候她筹备了一个她个人的专属乐队。
1987 年,琳达回到了乡村的歌路,跟老友桃莉芭顿(Dolly Parton)和艾美露哈瑞丝(Emmylou Harris)共同推出了一张「三重唱」(The Trio)的专辑,再度获得了相当高的评价,成为该年度「最佳乡村合唱团体」葛莱美奖的得主。接著,琳达再度「改变歌路」,开始演唱她从小熟悉与热爱的墨西哥拉丁歌谣,首先登场的是「我父亲的歌」(Canciones De Mi Padre),奔放而灿烂的旋律,获得了广大的迴响,这回又是一连三张。
也不晓得是否刻意安排,正如当年的「What's New」专辑,她在这张专辑的一开头,首先就唱出了同样描绘失恋女子故作坚强、向老情人问好的「Tell Him I Said Hello」,表现丝毫不逊於1955年把这首歌唱红的蓓蒂卡特(Betty Carter)。
小编制的乐队,风格与大乐团的伴奏有著相当大的不同。
这张专辑基本上仍然都是以钢琴为主,而不论是编曲人亚伦布洛本特、或者是另外一位钢琴好手华伦伯恩哈特(Warren Bernhardt)的弹奏,都非常细腻的把琳达的歌唱技巧衬托得更为动人。这些曲目,主要来自几位昔日在好莱坞与百老匯备受推崇的大师,以奥斯卡名曲「Baby, It's Cold Outside」著称的法兰克洛瑟(Frank Loesser),有两首歌曲获得採用,分别是「Never Will I Marry」和「I've Never Been in Love Before」,尤其是前者,更展现了琳达当年在与尼尔森瑞鐸合作的专辑中无法充分发挥的特质,以些许摇滚歌手的野性,把这首歌唱得几乎完美,堪称琳达最漂亮、最精彩的翻唱歌曲之一。
而在亚瑟汉弥尔顿(Arthur Hamilton)的「Cry Me a River」里面,我们则可以发现,她似乎参考了资深女歌手茱莉伦敦(Julie London)早年的经典版本,不过却以一种忧鬱的感觉,取代了茱莉伦敦那种稍带戏謔的风情,非常的动人。
在这张专辑的最后,琳达带来了山米范恩在1944年所谱写的经典,当年由平克劳斯贝(Bing Crosby)唱上冠军宝座的不朽名曲「I'll Be Seeing You」,彷彿告诉歌迷们,她仍然会继续努力的决心。
What's New is a Grammy-nominated, Triple Platinum-certified, 1983 Jazz album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt consisting of nine songs of Jazz music. It represents the first in a trilogy of 1980s albums Ronstadt recorded with the late bandleader/arranger Nelson Riddle.
(wikipedia)
The title is a bit of a tease. The most recent song on What's New is Crazy He Calls Me (1949). The earliest, What'll I Do? is a certifiable, card-carrying Irving Berlin classic, vintage 1924.
But what's old, in the case currently under consideration, is very new indeed for Linda Ronstadt, 37, whose lovelorn voice has provided rock'n'roll with some of the best ballad singing of the decade just past. Now, turning to other decades long past and currently in musical disfavor among her peers, Ronstadt has found a fresh direction. What's New, released last week by Asylum, avoids all the obvious routes. Powered by the celestial arrangements of Nelson Riddle, the album is not a sentimental journey, a dizzy camp-out or a show-biz grandstand play. It is a simple, almost reverent, rendering of nine great songs that time has not touched. At first hearing, Ronstadt's fans may be taken aback by the suave but swinging Riddle orchestra, by the playfulness and sophistication of the lyrics, by the tidal pulls of strong melody; this is the sort of music that anyone under 40 is supposed to despise. That is practically an article of rock'n'roll faith.
But creeds are made to be challenged, and by that measure What's New is one of the gutsiest, most unorthodox and unexpected albums of the year. "Linda deserves a lot of credit for having the courage to do such an album, to fly, in a sense, in the face of the times," says Riddle. Comments Ronstadt's longtime producer-manager, Peter Asher. "It's a bold move. I had mixed feelings about how the record would sell, but not about whether she would do it well."
Ronstadt's feelings are emphatic: "This record is the most important thing I have ever done, the best songs I have ever sung and the best singing I have ever done. I feel it's my life's work in a way. I don't know what my fans will think of it. I don't care too much. I hope they like it, but if they don't there is nothing I can do about it." Or would want to. No one in contemporary rock or pop can sound more enamored, or winsome, or heartbroken, in a love song than Linda Ronstadt. Singing the tunes on What's New, or even just talking about them, she still sounds like a woman in love: "It's like falling for a man. You can't not do it. He might be married or maybe not even like you very much and make a complete fool out of you, but you have to have him. When you fall in love you have no choice, and I literally had no choice with these songs. I was hijacked."
She had a long and sometimes bumpy ride. Her pal J.D. Souther, a pretty fair hand at writing a ballad himself (Prisoner in Disguise), liked to play Frank Sinatra's 1958 album for her, Only the Lonely. She also listened a lot to the extensive collection of vintage records owned by another friend, Author Pete Hamill. But it was not until the summer of 1980, listening one weekend to a Mildred Bailey record ("She sounds very pure and sexy at the same time- a sexy Snow White") at the home of Producer Jerry Wexler, that Ronstadt first hit on the idea of making an album entirely of standards.
Almost a year later, right after finishing her Broadway run in The Pirates of Penzance and just before starting the movie version, she and Wexler spent four days in a New York studio working on an album that Ronstadt now thinks of as "an expensive rehearsal session. The tracks weren't right, the way they were recorded wasn't right, the way I sang them wasn't right. What's New and Good-bye I couldn't sing at all. But I could sing them in the shower, so I knew there was something wrong with the arrangements." She abandoned the record ("Doing that killed me") and instead made Get Closer, a fine, smooth and entirely typical Ronstadt album that has sold under her recent platinum-record standard.
It seemed just the time for a new direction, if not for such a big risk. Asher admits feeling a lot better about the project after Riddle, the 62-year-old grand master of pop orchestration, agreed to sign on. Riddle, who speaks of Ronstadt's "strong, sure, pure tone, a naiveté and a freshness and a little-girlishness which were very appealing," had worked on several seminal Sinatra albums of the 1950s, including Only the Lonely. His work with Ronstadt may be hard for him to describe ("I don't know what kind of arrangements I wrote for Linda. It is probably as mysterious to me as it is to you. One goes on instinct"), but it does them both equal honor. Ronstadt, working from the same basic list of tunes she had attempted in 1981, wanted to "present the songs as purely as the day they were written. I wanted the pure melodies to come out."
When Riddle and Ronstadt first met in May 1982, he brought along the original sheet music he had used to arrange Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry. Casually he crossed out "Frank's key" in the corner to replace it with an annotation for Ronstadt's. "You can't do that, that's historic!" she protested, and got herself a new piece of sheet music, as well as a brand-new arrangement.
Ronstadt faced the recording process with some trepidation. Used to following a rock band, she now found herself singing, live, with a 47-piece orchestra that followed her. The experience, she reports, was "overwhelming. But musically it was also the most exhilarating I have ever had." Her friend Randy Newman, recording in a studio near by, listened in on some sessions and razzed Peter Asher about tapping his foot to the music. "There's no beat," Newman reminded him. "It's not like rock'n'roll."
Maybe not musically. But emotionally, Ronstadt's new album can bring a sweet rush of feeling that is immediate, direct and, for all its sumptuousness, almost recklessly intense. Any rocker would recognize the feeling. And, if anyone can, it is Linda Ronstadt who ought to be able to get them to hear it, too, right here.
( Jay Cocks - Time Magazine, Sept. 1983)
专辑曲目:
01. What's New
02. I've Got A Crush On You
03. Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry
04. Crazy He Calls Me
05. Someone To Watch Over Me
06. I Don't Stand A Ghost Of a Chance With You
07. What'll I Do
08. Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be)
09. Good-Bye