Customer Reviews

Famous Blue Raincoat

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Jennifer Warnes is a singer's singer, and Leonard Cohen is a songwriter's songwriter. They are each at the front of their game...and are brilliant in unique, almost tangible ways. I am not certain whose idea this CD was, but what a wondrous pairing! Warnes adds new levels to each of the eight excellent Cohen songs she interprets here...and does a remarkable job on her songwriting collaboration with Cohen, "Song of Bernadette." Americans barely noticed this superb collection; it was overshadowed by Warnes' #1 song "The Time Of My Life" of the same year. However, I don't believe anyone can say he or she has heard Jennifer Warnes without hearing this recording first! Warnes' immaculate interepretation of "Famous Blue Raincoat" blows Tori Amos' well-known version out of the water! Just as exquisite are "Bird On A Wire," "First We Take Manhattan" and "Ain't No Cure For Love." Warnes and her co-producer, C. Roscoe Beck, handpicked a batch of amazing musicians for this 1987 CD, including a Stevie Ray Vaughan guitar performance that is mind-blowing! Snatch this CD up and listen to it like there is no tomorrow...it's brilliant!

I found this outstanding CD in a store in Edinbough while traveling through Scotland in the late '80s. Perhaps the first shock is to hear Cohen's lyrics (so well-suited for his voice) sung so beautifully and passionately and so right by soprano Warnes. The vocals, instruments, arrangements, and production are all tight -- you can feel Warnes breath as she sings about love, lust, and loneliness. All the songs are winners, but "Song of Bernadette" belongs to Ms. Warnes. I'm a big fan of Leonard Cohen's books, poetry and music and this treatment of his songs by Warnes remains one of my favorite works. If you want to turn a friend onto Cohen, but are concerned that his voice (like Dylan's) may be too distracting for your friend (his or her loss), try this CD. Jennifer will win them over.

When this CD was released, it received critical acclaim both for its quality of music and the quality of the recording. This CD was deemed a benchmark for a great warm sound that took full advantage of the digital domain. Even today, reviewers of stereo equipment use this CD to judge a products sound quality. Leonard Cohen writes very literate lyrics and haunting melodies. Jennifer Warnes does an outstanding job of interpreting these Cohen standards. You will probably recognize "Bird on a Wire" but the title song "Famous Blue Raincoat" is almost worth the price of admission just on it's on. Jennifer Warnes is a very gifted vocalist and one of those consummate artists that just never made it.The CD is no longer available in the U.S., however, the import version is available and at a very reasonable price. So you should purchase this one now before it also becomes not available.

Mz Warnes,

you are the best, simple as that. when i first heard you sing i thought i was entering a dream state. those to whom i have introduced your music feel the same. song after song appears better than the last but we know that isn't true.

while i was a naval aviator aboard an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin 1967 (Vietnam big time!) i had a tape recorder with all of Judy Collins' albums recorded. those songs helped me through turbulent times. If i had know about your songs then i would have included them. i still think about those songs today 42 years later. they helped to keep me sane.

your songs and voice endure. your lyrics and those of the songwriters, such as Cohen, are magical.

what more could one ask of life than to entertain and mesmerize audiences worldwide with beautiful sounds?

please keep singing and writing. i love your music!

My first experience of Leonard Cohen was to see "Young Ones" hippy Neil look dolorously at the camera and say, stoically, "No-one ever listens to me. I might as well be a Leonard Cohen record". I first came across Jenny Warnes as she tag-team wrestled her way through the theme tune to "An Officer and A Gentleman" with the apparently talentless Joe Cocker.

And there, were logic my constant and only companion, it would have ended. Matter of fact, I can't really remember how I did come to get hold of this record, but it probably had something to do with a Stevie Ray Vaughan fixation I was going through at the time (which I still get relapses of). I recall being dismayed to discover SRV's only playing credit was on the first track, First We Take Manhattan.

My dismay only lasted as long as it took for track two to kick in. Bird on a Wire is almost a standard now, but the shimmering production and crisp delivery coaxed me gently on (you can lead a horse to water...) until I was fairly pinned to my seat by the end of the title tune. The rest of the album is enthralling: the production's lush but not sugary, the delivery's cool but not clinical. There are a couple of curve-balls: A Singer Must Die is rendered a curious a capella fashion, which reminded me (lord only knows why) of a Brecht opera, and the mid-tempo rock of First We take Manhattan is, in all honesty, slighty out of whack with the Sunday Morning feel of the rest of the album. But it kicks the album off so well, and it's such a great reading of the song (Stevie Ray's gorgeous playing is like in temper and as lyrical as his take on Bowie's "China Girl") that you can forgive the album that modicum of unevenness.

The odd coda to all this was actually buying a Leonard Cohen record in the flesh. Compared with Warnes' satin touch, it's a far more demanding listen, but it is worth persevering with: Leonard's own rendition of "Famous Blue Raincoat", for one, is positively frightening.

i first heard this cd at age 14 when my eldest brother bought it in 1989. funnily enough, i heard a version of "joan of arc" by taiwanese singer chyi, which was kind of weak. anyway, i didn't know leonard cohen at the time. almost immediately i fell in love with "famous blue raincoat" and "song of bernadette" -- the lyrics were just so amazing, so sad yet so poetic and 'true'. even though i was too young to fully understand it at the time, it stirred all sorts of emotions in me. (jeff buckley's "hallelujah" too would cause a similar reaction several years later.) part of why it was so easy to take it in and embrace these songs was due to warnes' warm and soulful delivery. i'd only previously heard her sing that dirty dancing theme, which i'd liked. but her performance on this cd goes far beyond that pop pap (and i reckon it's still her best recorded work). over the years, i've grown to like all the songs on the cd. when i first heard "joan of arc" i was kind of disappointed that cohen's own voice was very low-key and sort of bland (but i got over that soon enough and now i consider him to be a musical and poetic genius). although i can see how some people will be put off by the rather sentimental treatment of cohen's songs, (as exemplified by the rather melodramatic "song of bernadette"), i think that has a lot to do with the listener's prejudices and preconceived notions of how cohen's music should be performed. what warnes has done here is, with the help of an amazing bunch of musicians, to recast cohen's wonderful library of standards in a friendlier (not necessarily bland-friendly) environment. somehow, warnes manages to defuse (just enough) the more nihilistic and doomy elements of cohen's songs with her decidedly feminine interpretations -- and there's joy to be discovered in that, definitely. i eventually bought my own copy of the cd in 2003 after several years not listening to it (and even vehemently denouncing it during my punk years???) and i've rediscovered how well it's stood the test of almost 17 years now. good one!

It is wonderful to see this CD available. I am buying it tonight after recently purchasing my third casette tape because I literally wore out the first two. I especially love SONG OF BERNADETTE; it never fails to move me deeply: "... so many hearts I find, broke like yours and mine, torn by what we've done and can't undo ..." This is a wonderful album and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves intelligent, thought-provoking, and beautiful lyrics.

OK. If you own a sound system you must have this CD. Despite a 1987 release, it is considered by many as one of the best recording. A lot of car stereo installers here use this CD as a set up disc. Great album, Great sounding CD. The highest recommendation.

A match made in musical heaven, Jennifer Warnes' "Famous Blue Raincoat: The Songs of Leonard Cohen" is the rare tribute album that honors a legendary artist but also stands on its own as a rich listening experience.

Magnificentally produced and performed by a lineup that includes the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, Warnes doesn't improve on Cohen, but unlike the performers who interpreted his songs on "I'm Your Fan" and "Tower of Song," she more than holds her own, and puts her own stamp on Cohen's unique compositions. In a few instances, she manages to surpass the author, most notably with her touching rendition of "Ain't No Cure For Love," and more so with her majestic reading of "Joan of Arc" (with a guest appearance by the man himself). The latter squeezes every ounce of drama from both the lyrics and melody in a production so cinematic, you can almost see the flames closing in on the title heroine.

But every track is masterful, and Warnes' voice is both warm and regal throughout. A masterpiece.

Brian W. Fairbanks

What a gem this CD is on all fronts! Firmly ensconced in my Top 10 of all time, the combination of Warnes and Cohen is hand in glove. Warnes' enigmatic singing and the superlative production serve Cohen's material perfectly, esp. on "First We Take Manhattan." "Song of Bernadette," co-written by Warnes, is one of the finest songs ever written. And for you audiophiles, "Bird on the Wire" is often used to test and evaluate high-end stereo equipment. Buy this for yourself and for someone else with brains.