Robin Beck
Can't Get Off

"I dedicate this album to the memory of my father Charles, who gave me this voice...". This is what is written in the booklet of this disc... well then! And so one listens to it, this blessed voice, soon agreeing that the lady is right not to be modest: great singer this unknown blonde from Brooklyn... in a couple of episodes of this album (her fourth career album, released in 1994) there's even the chance of getting goosebumps if you're at least a bit romantic.

Beck's career, now in her sixties, is scattered and discontinuous. She debuted not very successfully at the end of the seventies, then achieved success with a comeback a good ten years later, establishing herself mainly in England and Germany but much less in her native continent. She then married House of Lords singer James Christian and undoubtedly focused on reproduction and raising her family, finally returning relatively recently to release new works, showing several more wrinkles but the same, extraordinary vocal delivery.

"Can't Get Off" is by far her most successful legacy, in my opinion one of the best AOR albums featuring a female voice. The balanced and clear production, simple and clear compositional ideas, the abundant class and restraint of all the instrumentalists involved, a good average of melodic inspiration, and above all a couple of unforgettable tracks support this thesis.

The first of these is titled "Don't Try To Find Love" and it opens with the piano chimes that introduce Robin's broken heart, revealed and moved by beautiful words propelled by a voice that gives you goosebumps: "Don't try to find love, it's often cruel to do so. Let it happen naturally, let it find its way to you. Don't search for it, let it find you...". Four minutes recommended to all those who need to recover from a painful romantic deception.

Another wonderful love song is "Whenever You Close Your Eyes", with a hyper-romantic refrain of vast melodic range over the soft carpet of electric piano, strings, and fretless bass. It also features a short but stunning acoustic guitar solo.

The rest of the album unfolds in medium/high appeal AOR like the opening "Footsteps in The Rain" or a "Loving You Is Wrong" spiced with harmonica, wavers towards the Fleetwood Mac-style pop rock 'n' roll of the titular track and the immediately following "Strange Love", picks up rhythm & blues nuances in "Can't Get You Out Of My Heart" or resolves in enveloping ballads like "Close To You" and "Pleasure & Pain", very much in Heart's style.

The singer of the just mentioned band, Ann Wilson, can certainly be taken as a reference point to frame Robin Beck's style. Ann is undoubtedly more powerful and stormy, but I venture to prefer the New York blonde, due, for example, to the nuances she is able to produce when she pushes her high notes: her timbre becomes a bit hoarse in a way that's entirely her own, which personally drives me crazy and makes me want to... marry her. Listen to her in the choruses of "November Blue", the track that closes the work: a thrilling vibrato, lucky James Christian to have her at home...