Lady With The Torch... Still Burning

Chronique

Apparently, Patti LuPone wasn't quite finished with her concept for her album (and concert act) The Lady with the Torch, because, seven months after the disc was released in April 2006, Ghostlight Records, her label, offered this 20-minute EP addendum on its website, seven more song standards addressed authoritatively by the singer. On the album proper, she had violated the "torch song" theme a couple of times, and though the torch was said to be "still burning" here, not much of the material treated romantic victimization, at least in conventional terms. "Me and My Shadow" certainly was a song of loneliness, and "Frankie and Johnny" told the story of a woman who'd been done wrong by her man, but Frankie was more a lady with a pistol than a lady with a torch. A lover temporarily stepped away in "C'est Magnifique," only to return, and the woman singing "Make It Another Old Fashioned Please" and "Find Me a Primitive Man" might be said not to be romantically satisfied. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," a nod to the season of the disc's release, has always been one of the most melancholy of holiday songs. Matching the neo-swing arrangements, LuPone rarely sounded like she was carrying a torch; more often, she seemed to be having a great time.

© William Ruhlmann /TiVo