Live From London

Chronique

Live From London, Barbara Cook's eighth solo album, is also her third concert recording, but it is the first such release the singer has undertaken in nearly 14 years, since the second of her Carnegie Hall collections, It's Better With a Band. Cook, who launched her second career as a concert artist (after an earlier career as a star of Broadway musicals) with her first live album, At Carnegie Hall in 1975, is a past master of the sort of show she puts on here. She begins with her virtual theme song, "Sing a Song With Me," which opened At Carnegie Hall, and was included on It's Better With a Band, and she performs "Sweet Georgia Brown," a nod to her home state, which was also on It's Better With a Band, as well as "He Was Too Good to Me," the Rodgers & Hart song that appeared on both her 1959 debut solo album Sings From the Heart, and At Carnegie Hall. (It is paired with "Losing My Mind," which she sang on 1985's Follies: In Concert album). But this is not to say that her show is a rehash of previous performances; rather, these are familiar referents for fans in what is really a new set made up of a combination of standards and less-familiar contemporary material. Cook puts her stamp on some terrific evergreens, notably the Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer songs "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "I Had Myself a True Love," both from the 1946 musical St. Louis Woman. And she also introduces her audience to some terrific new songs, including two written by Amanda McBroom (author of "The Rose"), "Ship in a Bottle" and "Errol Flynn." Her version of Peter Allen's "Love Don't Need a Reason" should speed that song's journey to status as a classic. Live From London does not break much new ground for Cook, but rather demonstrates that, in her mid-60s, she is maintaining her place as a superior concert singer of show music.
© William Ruhlmann /TiVo