Customer Reviews

Easy to Love: Songs of Cole Porter

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Susannah established a reputation for singing songs from the Great American Songbook in her own way. This is never more evident than on this collection of songs written by Cole Porter. Of course, the first thing you notice is the song selection - a typical mix of famous and obscure. It would have been interesting to hear Susannah sing I get a kick out of you, to name one of many obvious songs not included, but instead we get Weren't we fools and Why don't we try staying home - two very obscure but delightful songs that I'd never heard before.

Many of the song will be familiar to you in some form. Night and day is a song that Susannah originally sang part of for a commercial. After it was shown on TV, people wanted to buy her version of the song, so here it is. Anything goes is given an octet arrangement in ¾ time. Just one of those things and It's all right with me are cleverly linked in a medley. Other famous songs to be found here include Easy to love, Let's do it and Ev'ry time we say goodbye.

Susannah recorded many excellent albums before committing suicide. I have all the available original albums and I enjoy them all. For anybody new to Susannah's music, this is a good one to start with, because it contains so many familiar songs, so you can get a sense of how her versions differ from those you've heard before.

The late Susannah McCorkle cut a very good album with this one. I loved her cover of "Let's Do It"; she effortlessly knocked off what must be every known lyric to that song. My favorite, though, was "It's All Right With Me" for the countermelodies in the arrangement. The back-up instrumentalists (particularly Ken Peplowski) are fine throughout. Consistently fine throughout. Recommended.

I first became a fan of Ms. McCorkle in 1996 when I heard Susannah on public radio doing some of her work including stuff from then new album "Easy to Love: The Songs of Cole Porter". I was immediately enthralled and ran out and bought the CD. I love this compilation of Cole Porter songs. It's great to sit out on the porch at sunset, sipping wine and listen to this entire album, bidding farewell to another glorious day. I was saddened by her death as I'd been planning since 1998 to make a trip to New York City with the sole intent to catch one of Susannah's shows. God bless you Susannah, I hope to catch your act when I get to Heaven!

Susannah McCorkle has a small voice, cannot belt with vibrato and doesn't scat sing. That said, she is one of the most interesting singers I've heard and a true jazz singer. She gives Porter's lyrics great feeling and her imaginative reading of "Let's Do It" is the best I've ever heard. The arrangements and solos are very tasty and relatively undated. Those familiar with Porter will find McCorkle sometimes uses obsure lyrics and obscure songs and changes "Anything Goes" into a waltz. Some will be disappointed but I felt the obscure songs and lyrics were worthy of exposure and "Anything Goes" true to the Porter spirit. An enjoyable, well done project.

you have to love an artist you gives you the full song every time. she has a wonderful voice, and great timing and an occassional smile you can hear through the music.

This is another Susannah Mccorkle cd for me to add to my collection. It is a lot better than some of Susannahs' other cds.

Susannah, as well as the band, seemed to be hiting on all cylinders for this project. Their interpetations of the songs were good. Susannahs' voice never sounded better. This is a cd that the performers seemed to enjoy playing on and I think this feeling has spilled over to the listener as well.

I think the repertoire performed her left a lot to be desired.

Cole Porter sure pinned a lot of wonderul songs that were excluded from this project.

I know it's impossible to please all the fans of Susannah, so some of us fans will just have to be half pleased with this cd.

Recommendation: I think it would be alright to buy this cd.

I'd never heard of Susannah McCorkle until an article in the NEW YORKER magazine about her untimely death.

I ordered three McCorkle CD's...this is, by far, the best of the lot.

I love any artist who uses all the lyrics (Weslia Whitfield comes to mind)...and McCorkle coaxes so much out of each phrase.

I didn't much care for WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE or YOU DO SOMETHING TO ME, but the rest are almost perfect.

Enjoy!

My wife and I had the privilege of hearing Susannah live on several occasions at the Oak Room in the Big Apple. What a great live performer Susannah was. I feel like she is much better live than on recordings.

What a tragedy it was when we got the news of her death. We felt like she was a member of our extended family. She was a great performer, but least of all a great person. She did a lot of charity work, but never ask for publicity. We will al miss her!

As far as this cd goes, we only liked 5 songs out of the 14 performed her. My calculator says this is only a 40% rating so all we can give her for this effort is a 2 star rating. We need to be honest disite our friendship.

In conclusion we would like to say that we know Susannah is with God and that when we die we will reunited with her again. With all our love, Mom and Pops