Gone For the Day And Fair And Warmer
|
 |
Description
June Christy's bid to shake some of the frost off her image resulted in these two late-'50s albums. Although the ostensible theme of Gone for the Day is a visit to the outdoors with a lover, the occasional jarring note drops--witness the knowing orchestral dissonance on "It's So Peaceful in the Country" and the nod to Christy's bittersweet signature song, "Something Cool," on "When the World Was Young." Only a glib, brassy "Give Me the Simple Life" seems out of place. Fair and Warmer starts on a similar note with "I Want to Be Happy" but soon settles down. Christy's melody-bending performance renders the Jimmy Van Heusen/Johnny Burke "Imagination"'s suggestions of sex as melancholy as Gone's high points, while she takes charge of the situation on Irving Berlin's "Best Thing for You." This disc finds Christy striking close to greatness on a pair of complementary records from an era when the LP was finding its way as a conceptual tool. --Rickey Wright
|