Our Fair Lady

(Liberty: LRP-3392/LST-7392)

Released: 1965

Notes: This is a collection of songs from Julie's previous albums, along with a few movie theme songs.

CD Availability: Not available

All Music Guide review by Nick Dedina:

Julie London spent most of the 1960s recording middle-of-the-road vocal pop albums of varying degrees of worth before returning to West Coast jazz with a vengeance on 1965's All Through the Night. Recorded the same year as that excellent Cole Porter tribute, the bland Our Fair Lady comes off like corporate payback for a quick jazz rebellion. The arrangements on this release are lifeless, and though she projected a sexy, confident image on album covers, Julie London was always better at singing torch songs of unrequited love then whispering winking, come-hither tracks like "Never on Sunday" or kitsch songs such as "Theme From a Summer Place." While Our Fair Lady seems like a stopgap release, the balance between jazz and upscale pop was achieved on London's next [sic] release, the fine For the Night People.

Our Reviews

If you'd like to share your own review of Our Fair Lady here, please e-mail me.

Tracks

(original album or movie is in parentheses beneath song title)

Feeling Good

(Liberty: LRP-3416/LST-7416)

Released: 1965

Producer: Richard Bock. Arranger: Gerald Wilson

CD Availability: 2004 EMI two-fer, with "Love Letters."

Liner Notes by Leonard Feather:

Julie London bruises easily. Placed in juxtaposition with, say, a shaggy-dog vocal quartet from England, singing a song based on three wrong chords, she is apt to turn purple all over.

On the other hand, any time she finds herself in the company of an arranger like Gerald Wilson and a set of songs with attractive melodies and meaningful lyrics, she is as likely as not to take on a radiant air and sing, as she looks, like a living doll.

Julie is one of those much too rare performers who, one can sense, sings not for the fast buck but for esthetic reward. Her musical taste is impeccable. Nor should her taste in husbands be faulted when she can pick a man who, like Bobby Troup, writes such songs as "Won't Someone Please Belong To Me" or the lyrics to Neal Hefti's "Girl Talk" theme from the "Harlow" film.

Mrs. Troup's other agenda include the album's title song, which originated in "The Roar of the Greasepaint" [a Broadway show]; a theme from "The Yellow Rolls Royce" [MGM film] called "She's Just a Quiet Girl (Mae)"; the song about bruising, assembled by a promising young composer named Fred Manley; and "Hello Dolly," which she takes at a tempo better suited to her temperment [sic] than Satchmo's upper pace.

"I also included 'Summertime,'" she says, "because Stacy said to me, 'Mommy, why don't you record this new song I just heard?' She was quite surprised at my reaction. 'How come you know it?' she said. Stacy is 15 and she'd heard a teenage version on the radio. This made me feel a thousand years old."

If it took Julie's version to remind her daughter that a rock 'n' roll song was really a ballad, it also took the London touch to make a modern vehicle out of a country and western Roger Miller specialty, as the novel two-voice treatment of "King of the Road" makes pulsatingly clear.

Gerald Wilson was raised in Detroit, Michigan (I won't name his native state, since it wasn't his fault.) [my note: It's Mississippi. As a Beatles fan and a Southerner--Texas--this writer's snootiness is becoming annoying.]: he settled in Los Angeles in 1942 after three years on the road with the great Jimmie Lunceford Band. In addition to recording his superb band in a series of instrumental albums for Pacific Jazz, he has accompanied an impressive list of singers whose yen for first-class arrangements led them to him: Ray Charles, Bobby Darin, Al Hibbler, Nancy Wilson, for instance.

Gerald's featured soloist is Jack Wilson (no relation to Gerald or Nancy), a 29 year old Chicagoan active for the past couple of years as pianist, composer and combo leader around Los Angeles. Such tracks as "She's Just a Quiet Girl" indicate that he has a fruitful new career ahead of him as an organist. Also present are men like saxist Teddy Edwards, guitarist John Gray, bassist Jimmy Bond, drummer Earl Palmer and a dozen other members of the West Coast elite.

As Gerald Wilson said after this album was completed: "Julie is beautiful, but it's been clear ever since 'Cry Me a River' that she didn't rely on her looks. She really knows how to interpret a lyric; she has a lovely sound; and she's a wonderful person to work with."

The team of London and Wilson is guaranteed to leave you unbruised, and in a mood very adequately expressed in the album's title song. And who, as Gershwin once said, can ask for anything more?

All Music Guide review by Jason Ankeny:

Feeling Good pairs Julie London with arranger Gerald Wilson, who jettisons the spare ambience of her previous records in favor of a dynamic, big-band-inspired approach that casts the singer in an entirely different light. Make no mistake -- London's purring vocals are as sultry as ever, but they also boast a new playfulness that's undeniably appealing. Much of the material originates from the mid-'60s hit parade, including buoyant renditions of "King of the Road" and "Watermelon Man," but the highlights capture the full scope of London's rapturous femininity. "Girl Talk" warmly satirizes the ever-growing vogue for gossip, while "I Bruise Easily" is a sharply etched portrait of the mating dance.

Our Reviews

If you'd like to share your own review of Feeling Good here, please e-mail me.

Tracks

All Through the Night

(Liberty: LRP-3434/LST-7434)

Released: 1965

Producer: Richard Bock. Arranger: Russ Freeman. With the Bud Shank Quintet.

Notes: Recorded July 12, 13, and 16, 1965.

CD Availability: 1991 EMI, "Julie London Sings the Choicest of Cole Porter." This CD includes the 10 original songs from the album, plus an additional 7 Porter songs from other Julie albums.

All Music Guide review by Eugene Chadbourne:

It doesn't get much better than this, either for the recording career of Julie London or the whole concept of a vocalist doing standards with a good jazz combo providing backup. Listeners who like these sorts of songs but don't enjoy the over-arranged sounds of studio big bands and orchestras will no doubt take an immediate liking to having players such as Joe Pass and the terrific drummer Colin Bailey swinging away instead. Most of the room is left to London, who is in great form here. It is a tribute to Cole Porter, who wrote enough good songs for at least five albums such as this. The ten songs chosen run the gamut from the most familiar to a bit less, although most of this composer's work has received memorable outings via the vocal pipes of one saloon singer or another. Bud Shank does his Stan Getz thing, nicely pumped up. Greatly aided by a superb studio sound and mix, London really does convincing interpretations of these songs. In fact, she may be too convincing, and one might wind up packing one's bags as she eases into the first chorus of "Get Out of Town." Some hilarious outtakes from this session, in which the elegant songstress breaks form and bursts into swearing, have circulated among collectors for years.

Our Reviews

If you'd like to share your own review of All Through the Night here, please e-mail me.

Tracks

By Myself

(Liberty: L2M - 5053)

Released: 1965

Notes: Liberty issued this LP exclusively for the Columbia Record Club.

CD Availability: Not available.

Our Reviews

If you'd like to share your own review of By Myself here, please e-mail me.

Tracks