From Anita & Ella To Nina & Sassy: Celebrated Songstresses Of Jazz & Standards

Thank you for all of your excellent posts on Julie.

I tried a search for a thread on Japan Mini-LP CDs, but the only threads I found in the search were short inactive threads or on some specific artist.

If there is a recent, active thread on SHF can you provide a link?

 

Japan Mini LP SHM-CDs - New Releases, George Harrison and more

 

Tribute, I didn’t provide the link, because I reposted all related to us info from there, beside one post:

If anyone wants to get started on the dream, I'd recommend:

All Through the Night: Julie London Sings the Choicest of Cole Porter
Around Midnight
Julie... At Home
Love on the Rocks
Julie is Her Name -- the debut w/ her smash hit, "Cry Me a River"

There are many more great albums in the catalogue, but that would be a Top 5 for me.

frightwigwam, Sunday at 11:02 AM #1637

Japan Mini LP SHM-CDs - New Releases, George Harrison and more

So, this is a link, but the point is different.
I would like to take this opportunity to ask everyone in this thread (including you, Tribute) to complete this list to the top 10.
Or give us your own Julie London Top 10 Albums.

Please guys…

 

Thanks, so much, for the info. I'm confused as to how these will be released, though. Will you be able to buy them individually, or do you need to buy the whole volume?

 

Man, those look so cool! I would love to have the entire collection, but I just can't justify spending that much money right now. Too many medical bills piling up...

I don't think I could narrow the list down to ten as I don't own many of these, so I'm not familiar enough with them all to choose. The few I have I love, like Julie Is Her Name (one and two), Calendar Girl, Latin in a Satin Mood, Around Midnight.

 

So far, you can buy them only individually from Japan:

CDJapan : Complete Listings

But soon they will be available through US retailers, I think.

 

I'm working on my Julie London top 10 list.

So far, I came to such a list:

Julie London: Essential Albums

Vol. 1 (Sep. 22, 2021)

Julie Is Her Name
Lonely Girl
About The Blues
Make Love To Me
Julie
Julie Is Her Name Volume Two
London By Night
Your Number. Please...
Julie... At Home
Around Midnight

Vol. 2 (Oct. 18, 2021)

Love On The Rocks
Our Fair Lady
Feeling Good
All Through The Night
For The Night People
Nice Girls Don't Stay For Breakfast
Easy Does It

Now I have to shrink it to 10, and it's not easy to do...

 

So far, I shrink this Essential Albums list to 15 albums by cutting out two albums "Our Fair Lady" and "Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast."
And everything falls into place at once. Now this is exactly half of Julie's collection.
To distinguish the edited list from the previous version, the name of the list has been slightly changed:

Julie London: 15 Essential Albums
(edited list with release date)

Vol. 1 (Sep. 22, 2021)

Julie Is Her Name (1955)
Lonely Girl (1956)
About The Blues (1957)
Make Love To Me (1957)
Julie (1957)
Julie Is Her Name Volume Two (1958)
London By Night (1958)
Your Number. Please... (1959)
Julie... At Home (1960)
Around Midnight (1960)

Vol. 2 (Oct. 18, 2021)

Love On The Rocks (1963)
Feeling Good (1965)
All Through The Night (1965)
For The Night People (1966)
Easy Does It (1968)

 

I assume many are unfamiliar with most of Julie's 30 original LPs and know mainly the first one Julie Is Her Name and maybe Calendar Girl. Although the pictures and sonics descriptions are original vinyl centric, I put up a detailed series of discographical threads on each of her 30 albums that can be found at the link. For those interested they should provide enough material for more focused searches of Julie's many albums.

JULIE LONDON: General Discussion Thread

 

Thank you Mr Bass for the link and your passion to the singer - she was one of a kind.
I was waiting for you here and cannot help but ask:
Could you please post here your personal Top 10 Julie London albums (not by their historical importance, but how you personally like them from the musical point of view).

 

Top Ten is pretty easy :

1. Lonely Girl
2.Julie Is Her Name Vol 2.
3. London By Night
4. Julie Is Her Name (Vol 1)
5. Around Midnight
6. All Through The Night
7. About The Blues
8. Make Love To Me
9. Love On The Rocks
10. Whatever Julie Wants

I would note that there is a pretty wide variety of styles in that Top 10. Yes Julie was noted for torch songs and her voice was not capable of belting out notes. But her stylistic variety in her albums has always been under appreciated.

 

Here are a couple of new releases that I would recommend that to me carry on the tradition if in a slightly newer fashion...

Ledisi – Ledisi Sings Nina
Label:
BMG – 538695082, Listen Back Entertainment – 538695082
Format:
CD, Album
Country:
US
Released:
Jul 23, 2021
Genre:
Funk / Soul
Style:
Soul



Lady Blackbird – Black Acid Soul
Label:
Foundation Music (6) – none
Format:
11 x File, FLAC, Album
Country:
UK
Released:
Sep 3, 2021
Genre:
Jazz, Funk / Soul
Style:
Vocal, Contemporary Jazz, Soul-Jazz

 

I'm a lonely girl in London around midnight with the blues, so all through the night make love to me on the rocks. It's what Julie wants, and Julie is my name.

 

Great pun, Tribute. Thanks for making me laugh.

 

Helen Merrill - debut album on EMarcy with Clifford Brown. A beautiful recording.

 

Thank you, Mr Bass. This list, with ‘Lonely Girl’ at the top and ‘Julie Is Her Name Vol 2’ superior to Vol 1, tells me a lot...
It has a little bit for everyone, but you prefer the most intimate, minimalist approach.

My top 10 list was born very hard. Only the top 5 turned out to be easy:

5 top albums (by the year of release)
Julie Is Her Name (1955)
About The Blues (1957)
Julie... At Home (1960)
Around Midnight (1960)
All Through The Night (1965)

I rearranged them by my Personal Rating. What is it?
Throughout the years of listening to my CD collection, I have always tried to listen to only the songs that I like and avoided the rest. This is how I got to my personal rating for each song.
[I have now converted this into a 6-point rating system].
I affix a small (2”x 2”) yellow sticker to the back of the booklet. On this sticker I put a row of track numbers from 1 to the last.
While listening to each song carefully, I do the following things:

1. If I don't like a song, I cross out the track number.
2. If I like the song partially (some moments), I put a dot under the track number [1 point]
3. If I like a song, I underline the track number [2 points]
4. If I like the song more, I put a dot under the line [3 points]
5. If I really like a track, I underline it twice [4 points]
6. If I like the song even more, I put a dot under the double line [5 points]
7. I put my favorite song in the circle [6 points]

The final score for each album was calculated as a simple average of all album’s songs:

Julie London Top 10 albums
(with rating)

1. Around Midnight 4.67
2. About The Blues 4.42
3. All Through The Night 4.36
4. Julie is Her Name 4.23
5. Julie... At Home 4.17
6. Love On The Rocks 3.75
7. Make Love To Me 3.50
7. Easy Does It 3.50
8. For The Night People 3.36
9. Your Number Please... 3.33
9. Julie 3.33
10. Lonely Girl 3.08
10. Nice Girls Don’t Stay for Breakfast 3.08

Before this rating, I predicted that "Easy Does It" would enter the top 10.
Actually, ‘Easy Does It’ shared the 7th place in the top 10 with ‘Make Love to Me’.
I believe this is significant result, as both, standing 9 years apart, albums are excellent and rare hidden gems.
They shared the same concept idea: guys, don’t rush, go slow, go easy, easy does it – important message Julie left for us.

Strangely enough, two more contenders ‘Your Number Please...’ and ‘Julie’ scored the same mark - 3.33 and took 9th place.

And two more albums ‘Lonely Girl’ and ‘Nice Girls Don’t Stay for Breakfast' closed list with the same score 3.08.
Thus ‘Nice Girls Don’t Stay for Breakfast’ was treated unfairly and will be back on the Essential List.




P.S.
It may not be a perfect list, but it is the result of re-listening and evaluating over 200 Julie London songs.

 

I also tend to listen to favorites, but those can shift through time (as my own life keeps changing).

Sometimes, I regret having overlooked certain songs for so long.

 

Here's one example of how I rated one of the albums:

[In the Japan Mini LP SHM-CD thread, I posted a review of Julie London's Love on the Rocks album. One song from this album ‘How Did He Look?’ caught my attention. I listened to all the versions available on Youtube and wrote a small fictional story about this song, I called "White Gold", which I combined with the review of the album. I was inspired by the end of the Tokyo Olympics, which happened at the same time. I used a lot of real facts and real quotes from interviews with artists. In other words, facts and fiction were mixed in a fictional setting]

Julie London Love On the Rocks

Review

White Gold (toilet_doctor’s story)


“When I was a kid, all I wanted was loud rock music.
Now that I'm older and face a lot of stress from work,
all I want to do is relax. And that's what this album does best....
It mellows you out like a fine martini. This is one of Julie’s very best...”
(From comment)



This is an excellent torch concept album about love, broken relationship and sadness. Julie is at the top, treating each song with her own sensual way from her own experience.
Four songs: ‘What’s New’, ‘A Cottage for Sale’, ‘The Man That Got Away’ and ‘Willow Weep For Me’ are among of my favorites and received a maximum of 6 points.

I have read more reviews of this album and it seems to me that the album is so good that everyone picked up one more song that they could elevate at the same level with those 4 famous standards, I mentioned.

Here are a few samples:

"Love on the Rocks" from 1963 and is also a brilliant album produced by Snuff Garrett with arrangements by Peter King. It was well known that Julie smoked like a chimney… she was also the spokesperson for Marlboro cigarettes and made 7 commercials for them in her career. By the time she made “Love on the Rocks”, she was already married to Bobby, and have given birth to Kelly and her twin boys Jody and Reese. “Love On the Rocks” has a smokey and more mature sound with a bit of embitterment. "Guess Who I Saw Today" is the most devastatingly haunting and poignant. Though all the tracks are superb. I also give it 5-star rating.”
(J.R. Spencer, US, Dec. 2013)

“Love on the Rocks is an album which contains a dozen songs expressing the emotions of a woman whose love has been spurned. Julie adds to the already expressive lyrics, the magic ingredient of her provocative style, the style that is Julie London's distinctive trademark. Outstanding tracks include 'Willow Weep for Me', 'A Cottage for Sale', 'The Man That Got Away' and 'Love on the Rocks'.” (EMI, 2006)

"The End of a Love Affair" is unquestionably one of my favorite tunes of this album.”
(comment)

For me, such additional great song was: ‘How Did He Look?’. The more I listened to it, the more I like it.
I dug more into this song. This is not a simple song – it’s a psychological opus that goes deeply into a woman’s mind.
The song was written by Gladys Shelley and Abner Silver and first released by singer Joan Merrill on Dec. 27, 1940. Since then, 34 more versions have been recorded (6 instrumentals).
Of the 29 vocal versions, 5 were performed by male vocalists, including Mel Torme, with reversed lyrics and title ‘How Did She Look?’ (No offense, but it looks awkward to me).

To better evaluate Julie London version, a large competition was held at world largest music festival.
The 24 female singers, who recorded their own version in a past, were divided into 4 groups. Among contenders were such famous names as Connie Francis (1959 version), Carmen McRae (1964), Jerry Southern (1957), Eydie Gourme (1966), Dakota Staton (1966) and Della Reese (1960), classically trained Felicia Sanders (1953) and Ruth Olay (1963) and many others.
The winners of 4 groups reached the final. (It looked like a beauty contest, to be honest).

4th place was taken by the very first, original performer of the song redhead beauty Joan Merrill.
Joan has a strong voice with wide range, she can go very low and smoky and she can go very high and clear.
She presented not her original 1940 version, but a version that she re-recorded in 1958 for her only album she named... yes, you can guess, “How Did He Look?”

Joan put on a mind-blowing cinematic performance (as if she was singing straight from the silver screen) with a hysteria in the middle that sounded pretty organic and in its place. She found a way to combine classy singing with acting. It was a very unique performance with a distinctive style and voice, but… There was a small problem at the end of the song, when, unfortunately, she could not hold her “pipes” and made an operatic jump like a diva, smashing a little the drama that she so skillfully created. In her mind, there were no mistakes - the classically trained vocalists of the old school do it all the time. But time has changed...

Joan Merrill, 1958
“This is Joan Merrill warm and reach voice. Backed with small combo, big brass and lush strings,
this is singing a la Merrill, which is in class of her own.” (from liner notes)


3rd place with a bronze medal went to American actress Lizabeth Scott, who presented her 1958 version from her only album ‘Lizabeth’, where she showed her wonderful, deep and husky voice.

Lizabeth Scott, April 1958


How Did He Look?
https://youtu.be/R60OU9hsDGg

“We didn’t know that Queen of a Noir can sing…”

“Nor did I” – replied Liz in a short interview with TV channel OLYHD after the awards ceremony.
“For year I wanted to sing. I even wanted to take singing lessons and despite that my studio said that I’m out of mind, and “you are an actress, not a singer”, I did it anyway. Thanks to 2 top Hollywood vocal teachers that helped me for two and a half years".
“And here I am as a replacement – some of our singers tested positive. I’m glad that it turned out well.
Happy to be here and contribute to our team. Thanks to everyone who supported me.”

Appearance of Julie London, who took the silver, at this Festival was a surprise to everyone:


How Did He Look?
https://youtu.be/UHvCAkKGpIU

“We heard people of all countries, who were in the hall, shouting: “Julie! Julie! Julie!” Please tell us everything.”

“What can I say, I didn't want to come because I think there are so many young singers with real voices, but when I found out what I should sing, I agreed. This song is special to me. It was the opening song for my 1963 "Love on the Rocks" album (moved to the middle on the CD).
Unfortunately, people don't pay attention to this song these days, and I want them to rediscover it for themselves. This was my goal.

However, everything turned out to be much better than I could have imagined.
Organization, atmosphere, friendly people, our team, our president - all of this greatly influenced me.
I was inspired, excited and... here is a medal... silver, but for me it is White Gold.



Just a moment ago, when we were standing on the podium... 3 girls, hugged each other, and 3 rising American flags, and the anthem...
And I saw that everyone was crying and tears began to drip onto my medal.
When people said, "I am proud ...", I did not understand what they were talking about. Now I think I know."

"Julie, please, the last two lines for our audience..."

And Julie sang into the microphone:
“Not that I really care, I know that our love affair can never be
But how did he look, and did he ask about me”

And everyone who only was in a room, ran to kiss and hug her.
TV anchor with cameraman broke through the crowd:
“Julie, what can you tell our young singers who are watching us now?”

“Don’t smoke in bed, don’t smoke at all…”

The gold went to the lesser known, but amazing singer and beautiful woman Bea Abbott.
Bea added a tiny high-mid vibrato to her warm performance, making the song particularly thrilling and poignant.

It is interesting to note that this year for the first time at festivals, a new rule allows judges to view a repeated video of a performance if they missed something for a more objective result. This usually takes a few minutes. And for a while they watched Bea's version over and over. They later explained that they could not stop listening to her, discovering more new nuances in her voice.

Bea Abbott, May 1958


"They were all very emotional songs… that was a different era, a romantic atmosphere.
And Bea was really suited to that. She was a beautiful girl. She was so pretty and she handled herself well.
She knew how to work a room, how to connect with an audience."
(Ruth Tobias, a singer’s close friend)
How Did He Look?
https://youtu.be/WFiWT1VESHM

“Bea, please tell us a little about yourself. As far as we know, you and Julie are the same age."

“Practically yes, but we first met here. I'm a big fan of her...
I’m originally from Road Island. I dreamed of becoming a jazz singer from a young age and started singing in high school. At the age of 19, I moved to New York and became the vocalist of the Boyd Raeburn Orchestra - albeit not for long. I worked in New York for 3 years in many popular places until I met the famous Chicago trumpet player Leon Ruby, who had his own Dixieland band.

So, we got married and settled in Chicago… I love Chicago – there are great musical traditions there. (Some gypsy woman told me that we will remain married for 50 years until Leon's death...).
I’ve sung at the Melody Mill Ballroom in North Riverside with the Andy Powell Orchestra and the Vic Cesario Trio, and with pianist Joe Vito and jazz violinist Johnny Frigo… But mostly, the last few years, with the Hal Otis Orchestra following the opening of a new room at the Sheraton Blackstone Hotel called Cafe Bonaparte. In 1958 we released an album with a rather funny name "The Too, Too Marvelous Bea", paraphrasing the title of the song "Too Marvelous for Words".

I love Hal’s approach, gentle swing and soft jazz, if you will, he is always very supportive. And I completely immersed myself in the music in the studio, was kind of moody.
This song, ‘How Did He Look?’ – it’s just my thing… as if written for me… it is a very feminine song... it is a very good song.”

“Bea, please tell our beginners: how to get Gold at world’s biggest music event?”

“Just follow 3 easy steps:
First, you don’t need to have a big voice; you need to have a big heart (which many our young singers already have – first step is done).
Second, you only need to learn how to open your heart to people. I learned this from Billie Holiday.
Billie said: “People often ask me, how do I do it? I’ll tell you, guys, just give me a good song...”
As for the Gold, you have to approach the event in the best shape – 1-2 hours of singing every day for the last 3 years.

Someone just told me that this medal was the 39th gold medal for our team, surpassing 38 gold medals for the Chinese team.
This is a historic moment, and I am happy that we succeeded.
I dedicate this medal to our country and Billie Holiday."

She bit her gold medal slightly, placed it on her small palm and held out her hand.
And again, all the people in the room began to hug and kiss her, many were in tears.

This is how the version of Julie's song "How Did He Look?" was rated. It definitely gets 6 points along with the four other songs I mentioned above.

Finally, I would like to note the cover of Julie's album "Love on the Rocks", it is one of my favorites.
The artist caught her smoking and sitting in front of us, but her eyes tell us that she is not here, she is far, far away...
I have this 2010 Mini LP album and I took photos, but they fell short against the image I stole from eBay:



Overall, after counting the score, ‘Love on the Rocks’ took 6th place with a score of 3.75.

 

It does actually change exactly in jazz vocal genre (not rock, though). In this case, when I feel it shifts, I put a new rating under the old one.
On this way, it's good to see where I'm going.

 

It is not only songs that I reconsider, but especially vocalists.

I may have had little appreciation for a singer at one time, but great admiration for the singer (and his or her style) later.

 

Yes, I meant and songs and vocalists - they are getting different rating.

 

I have loved Laura Fygi from The Netherlands since the 1990s. She has such a beautifully lush and resonant voice. The video below is "Dream A Little Dream" from the "Bewitched" album. This version is definitely influenced by the "Mama Cass" version but that version in turn was influenced by Ella's version from the "Ella & Basie!" album from 1963.

 

Glad to see the love for About The Blues. That is my personal favorite of those Julie London albums I have. I don't have copies of Around Midnight or All Through The Night, so I may have to seek them out.

The two songs Bobby Troup has writing credit on (Meaning of the Blues, The Blues Is All I Ever Had) are unexpected gems.

 

You should post the comparison version of Ella for better understanding of your point and better fit this thread:

 

Those are great songs, you nailed them right. I planned to talk about them, hope we will.