Annie Laurie - Songs Made Famous By Dinah Washington FLAC download

First thing to note is that this ‟budget” record label was notorious for misrepresenting the contents of their releases. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that eight of the nine songs do actually feature Annie Laurie. The one that doesn’t seems to be a (most regrettable) mastering error in which they included the wrong track by a different artist—one that will send you scrambling for the nearest widget that will make it stop. The rest of the tracks feature Annie backed by a small combo (perhaps one led by Specs Williams) and I find them highly enjoyable.Since this label was in the habit of making up titles for the songs, hereʼs what we’ve got: Tracks A1 to A3 are of course the well-known songs ‟What A Difference A Day Makes”, ‟Unforgettable”, and ‟Until The Real Thing Comes Along”. Tracks A4 and B2 are ‟Love That Man Of Mine” and ‟Annieʼs Blues”, songs that Annie had recorded with Paul Gayten in 1950. Track B1 is a ballad that I have not heard elsewhere and ‟No Regrets” seems like a good name for it. (First lines are ‟No regrets, no not yet. No regrets since we met”. Anybody know?) Track B3 is a medley of sorts. She sings two verses from ‟Roll ʼEm Pete”, then one each from ‟I May Be Wrong” (the Count Basie song), ‟Bye Bye Baby” (the T-Bone Walker song), and ‟Whatʼs On Your Worried Mind”. Finally B4 is Paul Gayten’s ‟For You My Love”.So, the ‟tribute to Dinah” angle is pretty tenuous, as only the first two (maybe three) of the songs are really associated with Dinah Washington. Also, though thereʼs no indication of the origin of these recordings, I think Dinah probably hadn’t died yet when they were made. Thereʼs a gap in Annieʼs discography for the year 1961, so my guess is they were recorded around then, perhaps for a small label, with the tapes eventually ending up here. These are probably songs that she was doing in her show at the time. Furthermore, I suspect these are one-take recordings. She gets a couple words wrong in ‟What A Difference” which are not a big deal but she probably would have done another take. And on ‟For You My Love” she starts clapping her hands while the musicians are taking solos, and this is picked up by her mic with a lot of reverb (or something) and this gives a very strange effect that is sometimes louder than the music. Surely the engineer would have wanted another take.Despite what it says on the cover, these recordings are monaural. The only thing that is in stereo is the surface noise.Having said all that, I have played this album many, many times since I got it a few weeks ago and itʼs a keeper. Her ‟What A Difference” and "For You My Love" are my new favorite versions of those songs.