Customer Reviews

Anytime Anywhere & Love Me Again

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
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It's about time some of Rita Coolidge's large catalog makes it to CD! "Anytime...Anywhere" is the pinnacle of Rita's commercial success. The best tracks here are not the biggest hits, but other treasures: "The Hungry Years", "Southern Lady", and "Who's To Bless And Who's To Blame". Her vocals on this record are amazing. This album was originally released in 1977, but still sounds as good as it did on first listen all those years ago. "Love Me Again" the follow up to "Anytime...Anywhere" is filled with gorgeous, heartfelt vocals. Best cuts here are "Hello Love, Goodbye", the title track, and "It Just Keeps You Dancin'". Both records feature top notch musicians. Rita really is one of the pioneers of California Rock/Pop. It is nice to see some long overdue recognition, in the form of this reissue. Thanks to Raven records for this...now we just need Rita's first 3 albums made available on CD in America!! This item is a must for any music fan, Rita is an outstanding singer, and is still touring/recording today....may she sing for many years to come!

I've never understood why A & M hasn't released Rita Coolidge's "Anytime, Anywhere" on CD. Or some of her other albums for that matter. I was very happy to purchase this disc and even happier to give it a listen. I'm a Coolidge fan, especially her work in the 1970s and early 1980s. Her cover of "Higher and Higher" is probably the best ever. But the disc also includes other great nuggets, like Sam Cooke's "Good Times," Danny Whitten's "I Don't Want to Talk About It," Christine McVie's "Songbird," and especially now ex-husband Kris Kristofferson's "Who's To Bless and Who's To Blame," which has a nice gospel feel. Coolidge knows how to pick the right songs to showcase her silky voice.

This CD is an absolute must for any Rita Coolidge fan. Now if only some of her other great albums would be released on CD, like "Nice Feelin'" and "The Lady's Not For Sale." Maybe someday....

I've waited so long for these to be available! And they're finally here! Thank you to whoever did this.
These are her two albums that I love the most. Of course, Higher and Higher, won her much acclaim, as it should have. But I have to admit that every track on these two is excellent.
The 'Delta Lady' anthology is nice, but to have these in addition to that is exceptional.
Rita has one of the smoothest voices I've ever heard. Soft, smoky, romantic. She does justice to every song here.
If you like slow rock from the 70's-80's, do yourself a favor and get this while it's available. She's one of the most highly underrated and irreplaceable artists that has ever been.

WELL IT IS ABOUT TIME.............AND FROM THE LOOKS OF IT THE RELEASE IS
HOTT! AMAZON IS ALREADY OUT WITH MORE TO COME..............GLAD I PRE
ORDERED MINE................RITA COOLIDGE IS TALENT, BEAUTY, CLASS,
SOUL, INTELLIGENCE, AND THE AMAZING TALENT TO TURN ANY SONG INTO HER
VERY OWN...........YES ALL THE HITS ARE HERE BUT I AM SO EXCITED TO HAVE
"HUNGRY YEARS", "I FEEL THE BURDEN" "WHO'S TO BLESS AND WHO'S TO BLAME",
AND "ANYTIME ANYWHERE" MADE RITA A STAR.............BUT I HAVE BEEN A RITA
FAN RIGHT FROM THE STAR..............AND NOW "LOVE ME AGAIN" CANNOT BELIEVE THIS IS RELEASED THE WAY RITA SINGS " HELLO LOVE GOODBYE",
"JEALOUS KIND", "LOVE ME AGAIN" I ALREADY HAVE " SATISFIED" as a IMPORT
BUT I AM WAITING FOR "lady's not for sale", "it's only love", "heartbreak radio" release them all.............rita coolidge is
good music, outstanding musicians, production, and thank you RAVEN for
releasing these 2 albums on 1 CD! I AM READY FOR MORE AND THANKS AMAZON FOR HAVING THIS GREAT RELEASE!

Great CD. I'm glad they made this CD. Anytime, Anywhere is one of Rita Coolidge's best albums ever.

We own Anytime...Anywhere on LP & we have a turntable, but having this album on CD is much more convenient & this CD also includes Rita Coolidge's 'Love Me Again' album.

I absolutely love 'Anytime...Anywhere'; I played it weekly along with a few other favorites, Ronnie Milsap, Air Supply, The Bee Gees, The Righteous Brothers & Kenny Rogers to name a few. Rita has perfect pitch, a clear voice & sings all her songs with feeling. Each song (#s 1-10 on the above list) in her 'Anytime...Anywhere' album was a hit by other artists. She sang them beautifully! I can't pick a favorite; I love each and every one of them! I can't say that about very many albums.

I'm not as familiar with the 'Love Me Again' album, but consider it a plus that it's included on this CD.

I shall never grow tired of Rita's voice. This is another winner combo on one CD.

Ever since the advent of digital music, I have searched far and wide for a copy of "Anytime...Anywhere". Like other reviewers, my brother and I have enjoyed several of the non-hit cuts included, especially "Who's to Bless and Who's to Blame?" as well as "Words" maybe more for their production and tight band arrangements than Rita's intimate vocals, although she is certainly no second rate singer. We even had a friend of ours, who is a music store employee, to do a world-wide search of vinyl-to-digital transfers in order to get the best possible reproduction, but they just never measured up to the quality we wished for. The reason I just now found it was that I finally gave up and didn't even expect it to be released on CD.

Wow! Am I glad I gave it one more try!

Rita Coolidge has a long and distinguished career to her credit, without ever quite achieving the level of popularity that her talents deserved. Nevertheless, she had her moments in the spotlight and never more so than with the first of the two albums presented here, Anytime anywhere. Many of the tracks have been available on CD on various compilations, but this release marks the debut of the whole album on CD. Prior to its original vinyl release in 1977, Rita had recorded five solo albums and two duet albums with then-husband Kris Kristofferson. Those earlier albums all made the American album charts, as did some of the singles taken from them, but none got close to the top ten. All that changed in 1977.

Anytime anywhere yielded several hits in America and also gave Rita some success internationally. Many of the songs were covers, but with tasteful production nicely complementing Rita's superb voice, the versions here probably sounded fresh and exciting to anybody who was familiar with the originals. I only started collecting records in 1978, at which time this was one of my first purchases. At the time, I wasn't familiar with the original versions of most of these songs, but a lot of things have changed since then.

Higher and higher, a cover of Jackie Wilson's classic song, is very different from the original and both are different from Dolly Parton's cover, also from 1977 . Comparison of the three versions is interesting and proves that a really great song can be interpreted in a variety of different ways. Rita's version made number two in the American Billboard pop charts and also gave her a minor UK hit, which was her first UK hit of any kind.

We're all alone, a cover of a Boz Scaggs album track, made the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic, ensuring name recognition for Rita in Britain. It may have seemed that Rita was on a roll, but she never again came close to the top ten in Britain or America. The way you do the things you do, a cover of an early Temptations classic, made the American top twenty (but only just), while Words, a cover of a Bee Gees classic, made the top thirty in Britain. My favorite among the non-hits is Southern lady. Other great tracks include Good times (a Sam Cooke song), Hungry years (a Neil Sedaka song) and I don't want to talk about it, originally an album track for Crazy Horse, but later a successful single for both Rod Stewart and Everything But The Girl.

The follow-up album, Love me again, was overshadowed by its illustrious predecessor. In America, the opening track, You, made the top thirty and the title track became a minor hit. No UK hits came from this album. Nevertheless, as I listen to this album again, I am reminded that it is also an excellent album, the overall style being very similar. Again, there are a number of covers, generally of less familiar songs such as Hello love goodbye (Johnny Rodriguez) and You`re so fine (Falcons). The most familiar songs to most listeners are likely to be Bye bye love (originally by the Everly Brothers) and Songbird (originally by Fleetwood Mac from their album, Rumours).

These were the first two Rita Coolidge albums that I ever bought, and having disposed of my vinyl copies in the early nineties, it's good to have them together on one CD. Rita was poorly served by releases of her seventies music for a long time, but it now seems that the situation is slowly being rectified, better late than never.