Customer Reviews

First Harvest (Jewl)

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There's a new girl singer in town, and she's a wowser---and there's no anti-feminist disrespect here. Elizabeth Ward Land has just released a CD meant to be permanently placed on a shelf alongside Billie, Judy, Doris and Ella. Aptly enough entitled First Harvest, it's a fantastic blend of styles, from stage and screen through gospel and country. "A Change in Me," from Tim Rice and Alan Menken's Beauty and the Beast, is re-thought for an adult mindset; Mary Chapin Carpenter's "It Don't Bring You" is as heartbreaking as always, the classic '60s anthem "A Taste of Honey" as honest as a folk song, and the CD finishes with a jazzy, hot, boop-oop-a-doop version of the Dubin-Warren classic "42nd Street." Land's voice adapts remarkably to the disparate material, yet it's difficult to compare her with any other singer. Her diction, tone and pitch are perfect, but unquestionably it is her love of this material that sets this CD apart.

When Alan Menken speaks, I listen. And I agree wholeheartedly with what he says about Elizabeth. A classic collection of songs, rendered with crystalline diction, pure and perfect pitch, and a warmth and sensitivity all too rare these days, when marketing and microcircuitry seem to have eclipsed sheer talent.

Buy.

This.

Disc.