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Rating: If Mahalia Jackson is "Lady Gospel," if Aretha Franklin is "Lady Soul," and Billie Holiday is "Lady Jazz," Etta James was surely "Lady Blues."
If you are looking for music and a voice capable of giving you chills with every listen, this album and especially this artist, who became famous in the '60s, is what you're searching for. A prodigy discovered by Johnny Otis, at a very young age, she was signed by "Chess Records," for which she produced her best (master)works, now landmarks of "black" music: among these stands out "At Last," her second and most famous studio album.
It's an album that spans and hybridizes Jazz, Blues, R&B, and even Pop, where the absolute protagonist is Etta James's voice: delicate, "soft," and incredibly deep in "Anything to say you're mine," a Jazz-Blues piece that opens the record; the same happens at the beginning of "My Dearest Darling," then it erupts in the chorus with incredible and intensely powerful high notes, and here, anyone who doesn't feel chills run down their spine is stone-hearted; and a constant shiver is offered, for all its 3 minutes, by the next piece, "Trust In Me," a superb, extremely touching, and intense Jazz-Blues ballad; it moves through the jazzy "A Sunday Kind of Love" and the bluesy "Though Mary"; "I Just Wanna Make Love To You" is one of the most famous R&B tracks ever (we all recognized it through the Coca Cola commercial that aired a few years ago), where James unleashes a raspy, sensual voice, I would dare to say sexy, as a provocative "Femme Fatale." It is followed by her most famous piece, and one of the most beautiful and deep "atmospheric" songs ever made, "At Last"; it continues with "All I Could Do Is Cry," a poignant Jazz-Pop ballad with a Southern flavor, the famous "Stormy Weather," and another piece with Pop undertones, "Boy Of My Dreams"; after which, four Bonus Tracks in duet with Harvey Fuqua: "My Heart Cries," the famous Blues "Spoonful," "It's a Crying Shame" and the poignant "If I Can't Have You," which closes the album.
A timeless album. An album that is a monument to one of the greatest voices of the 20th century: a voice that knew, or rather still knows how to move like very few others, an expressiveness and an interpretative ability that is timeless, able to engage and move, with its irresistible, devastating intensity and depth, then as now, in 1961 as in 2007 and surely even in 2071: a singer who transcends the years.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 My Dearest Darling (03:02)
All I need
Is someone like you
My dearest darling
Please~love me to
Within my heart
I pray your answer's yes
I'll make your life
Full of happiness
I'll be there by your side
Oh,I pledge my love to you
With God as our guide..
Unh~my dearest darling
I offer you my heart
Oh, yeah whenever you need me
I'll..I'll be there by your side
Oh~I pledge my love to you
With God as our guide
Oh nothing,nothing,nothing in this world
Can keep us apart
Unh~ my dearest darling
I'm offering you my heart
Unh~my dearest darling...
03 Trust in Me (02:59)
Trust in me in all you do
Have the faith I have in you
Love will see us through, if only you trust in me
Why don't you, you trust me?
Come to me when things go wrong
Cling to me daddy,woh yeah and I'll be strong
We can get along, we can get along ,oh if only you trust in me
While there's a moon, a moon up high
While there are birds, birds to fly
While there is you,a you and I, I can be sure that I love you....oh....
Stand beside me, stand beside me all the while
Come on daddy face the future, why don't you smile?
Trust in me, and I'll be worthy of you ....oh yeah, yeah
Why don't you trust in me in all you do?
Have the faith that I... I have in you
Oh And love will see us through, if only you trust in me Yeah...Yeah Yeah
Why don't you come to me, when things go wrong, cling to me and woh, And I'll be strong
We can get along, we can get along oh, if only you trust in me.....
07 At Last (03:00)
At last
My love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song
Ohh yeah yeah
At last
The skies above are blue
My heart was wrapped up in clovers
The night I looked at you
I found a dream, that I could speak to
A dream that I can call my own
I found a thrill to press my cheek to
A thrill that I have never known
Ohh yeah yeah
You smiled, you smiled
Oh and then the spell was cast
And here we are in heaven
for you are mine....
At Last
09 Stormy Weather (03:08)
Don't know why
There's no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather
Since my man and I ain't together
Keeps raining all of the time
Oh yeah
Life is bare
Gloom and misery everywhere
Stormy weather, stormy weather
And I just can't get my poor self together
Oh I'm weary all of the time
The time, so weary all of the time
When he went away
The blues walked in and met me
Oh yeah if he stays away
Old rocking chair's gonna get me
All I do is pray
The Lord will let me
Walk in the sun once more
Oh I can't go on, can't go on, can't go on
Everything I have is gone
Stormy weather, stormy weather
Since my man and I, me and my daddy ain't together
Keeps raining all of the time
Oh, oh, keeps raining all of the time
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah raining all of the time
Stormy stormy
Stormy weather
Yeah
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