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Julie London - About The Blues (1957)

Track listing:
  1. Basin Street Blues 3:07
  2. I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues 2:59
  3. A Nightengale Can Sing The Blues 3:11
  4. Get Set For The Blues 2:46
  5. Invitation To The Blues 2:51
  6. Bye, Bye Blues 1:41
  7. Meaning Of The Blues 2:59
  8. About The Blues 3:08
  9. Sunday Blues 2:57
  10. The Blues Is All I Ever Had 2:53
  11. Blues In The Night 3:42
  12. Boquet Of Blues 2:56

Notes

Size: 73.8 MB
Bitrate: 256
mp3
Ripped by: chrisGoesRock
Artwork Included
Source: Japan 24-Bit Remaster

Julie London wasn't really a jazz singer, but she possessed a definite jazz feeling and many of her finest albums (such as Julie Is Her Name and Julie...At Home) feature small-group jazz backings. About the Blues was aimed at the 1950s pop market, but it may just be her best orchestral session. Since downbeat torch songs were London's specialty, the album features an excellent selection of nocturnal but classy blues songs that play to her subtle strengths instead of against them.

Likewise, Russ Garcia's clever arrangements bleed jazz touches and short solos over the solitary strings and big-band charts. Like June Christy, London usually included a couple of new songs in with a selection of standards, and her husband, Bobby Troup, wrote two excellent numbers for the album. One of them, the emotionally devastating "Meaning of the Blues," is the album's highlight, and was turned into a jazz standard after Miles Davis recorded it the same year for Miles Ahead.

A sultry, smoky-voiced master of understatement, Julie London enjoyed considerable popularity during the cool era of the 1950s. London never had the range of Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan, but often used restraint, softness, and subtlety to maximum advantage. An actress as well as a singer, London played with heavyweights like Gregory Peck and Rock Hudson in various films, and was married to Jack Webb of Dragnet fame for seven years before marrying songwriter Bobby Troup ("Route 66"). London performed her biggest hit, "Cry Me a River," in the Jayne Mansfield film The Girl Can't Help It. After recording her last album, Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, in 1969, she continued to act — playing a nurse on the NBC medical drama Emergency from 1974-1978. Despite her "sex symbol" image — London was known for her sexy LP covers, which make them collector's items — she was surprisingly shy, and left show biz altogether in the late '70s. In the mid-'90s London suffered a stroke, which led to a half-decade of poor health and ultimately contributed to her death on October 18, 2000.

01. Basin Street Blues Williams
02. I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues Arlen, Koehler
03. A Nightingale Can Sing the Blues Charles, Marks
04. Get Set for the Blues Karnes
05. Invitation to the Blues Fisher, Gershwin, Roberts
06. Bye Bye Blues Bennett, Gray, Hamm, Lown
07. Meaning of the Blues Troup, Worth
08. About the Blues Hamilton
09. Sunday Blues Lutcher
10. The Blues Is All I Ever Had Troup
11. Blues in the Night Arlen, Mercer
12. Bouquet of Blues Hamilton