Tuesday 23 June 2009

Summer's got me feeling ...

I heard on my favourite radio show (Russell Davies' Songbook, Sunday evenings on BBC Radio 2) that the arranger/songwriter Billy Ver Planck had passed away. It's a name I first came across via his arangements on Lydia Lunch's Queen of Siam LP on Ze in the summer of 1980. That record seemed impossibly mysterious and glamorous, and arguably it started me out down the irredeemably romantic and un-rocky road to listening to lots of lots of jazz vocal, torch songs, and so on.

In the past couple of years I suspect I've listened more to the jazz vocal work of Jackie Cain and Roy Kral than pretty much anything else. That's sort of reflected in the ebullient eighth issue of Your Heart Out, which is called The Historical Romance and can be downloaded for free here.

You can also have a listen to a selection of Jackie & Roy here. And if you're partial to some jazz, vocalese, harmony pop, bossa nova, sunshine pop, soft pop, fusion then you'll find something to suit the sunny weather, or at least make it seem warm and pleasant. Jackie's voice is exquisite, and oh yes their early interpretation of Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf's Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most is included. And as a taster ...

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