Sheila Southern--The Burt Bacharach Songbook (aka This Girls in Love With You), 1969.

 

Sorry for the delay--I've been preoccupied with my new toy, my YouTube channel.  I got to ripping tracks ahead of myself and decided that I need to take a breather.  I had hoped to have this up, like, last week, but sometimes our plans don't pan out.  I'm not going to insert the clever saying, "If you want to give God a good laugh, tell Him your plans."  Oops--I just did.  And that's one of those sayings with multiple sources (in other words, a series of false attributions), just like the standard, "There are only two types of music: Interesting and uninteresting."  Arthur Fiedler said that.  Or was it Duke Ellington?  Or maybe I said it.  No, it predates me, so that's not possible.

Anyway, lots of very nice words at YT, and I totally deserve them.  Er, I mean, I'm totally humbled.  And, as I look at other images of British vocalist Sheila Southern (our artist for today), the phrase which comes to mind is "ridiculously easy on the eyes."  Gorgeous lady, and quite a singer.  That's always a lucky combination, for either a male or female entertainer (but especially the latter).  And... these are all the Burt songs we'd expect (a very good thing), with Here I Am thrown in as the starting track, and what a fantastically good choice for an opener.  A lovely ballad, which I'd previously only heard in Dionne's version, and almost too sophisticated for AM radio.  I.e., the AM radio of the time.  And, certainly, of our time.  I mean, Burt had the temerity to not put everything to a Disco beat, with two-measure phrases on auto-repeat.  What did he think he was??  A skilled musician??

Condition on this was not as good as I'd remembered from the purchase, and so, after a pass through VinylStudio's great declicker, there remained maybe 30 bumps/pops to edit out (VS has a bass-protection feature which allows noise to get through).  However, the post-spliced audio is excellent overall, especially for an SPC pressing.  In fact, by SPC standards, it's a miracle.  The audio starts to break up around the close of the final track, and I don't know if that's wear, the result of an SPC pressing, or what.  But it's nothing major.  And the excellent fidelity is easily explained: Pye Studios, England.  SPC inherited the Pye master tape(s) and put this out in 1970, but I'm staying with the recording year of 1969.  The original British Marble Arch (Pye subsidiary) LP had a more sensible title--Sheila Southern Sings the Burt Bacharach Songbook--but of course that wasn't nearly fragmented enough for SPC.

The British issue credits The Mike Sammes Singers and conductor Paul Fenoulhet on the front cover, whereas this Ambassador (SPC) issue sticks them on the back, along with a lame, written-to-fill-space essay featuring such inane sentences as, "This blue-eyed, fair haired song thrush has in her early years--like Burt Bacharach--captured the hearts and imagination of her public with her vibrant interpretations of today's youthful music appetites."  That last part isn't even literate.  Anyway, I had to check out the essay, just in case it had pertinent info.  And so I lost three or so minutes of my life, never to get them back.  The Marble Arch LP dispensed with such idiocy, simply forgoing a write-up.  When the music's this good, all that needs to be said is, "This is killer stuff" or words to the same effect.

This is Burt and Hal done justice by all concerned.  I really can't add anything past that--this is an A+ effort, and even if it had to come out on a bottom of the barrel label in the U.S.  Let's just thank the vinyl god that it came out.  ("Thank you, vinyl god!!")

DOWNLOAD: Sheila Southern--The Burt Bacharach Songbook, 1969

Here I Am

What the World Needs Now

Do You Know the Way to San Jose

You'll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart)

I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself

Wives and Lovers

Walk On By

A House Is Not a Home

Alfie

The Look of Love

Trains and Boats and Planes

This Girl's in Love With You

Artists: Sheila Southern, The Mike Sammes Singers, Orch. conducted by Paul Fenoulhet.

The Burt Bacharach Songbook Sung by Sheila Southern (back cover title)--Ambassador S 98099; rec. 1969, released 1970.