Customer Reviews

Get Happy

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

 

 

It's no secret that I am a Peggy March fan. I've been following her career, pardon the pun, since she went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963 with "I Will Follow Him," my all-time favorite song/recording.

Since she returned to the U.S. after living in Germany for many years, I've had the opportunity to see her perform live several times. Her voice is as strong and as incredible as ever, if not more so. She blows audiences away with her "Bridge Over Troubled Water," and her repertoire also includes showstoppers like "Get Happy" and "Mack the Knife," sung half in the original German and half in English.

Now she has released a new album with studio versions of those songs, so you can hear for yourself why, after all these years, I am still very much a Peggy March fan.

It was a real delight to hear Little Peggy March 46 years after her big hit I Will Follow Him. I give Peggy Marchs voice 5 stars and then some. She has a super, powerful well trained voice. She chose to do arrangements of standards more in keeping with the sound of the 40's and 50's. I would have liked to hear her to a more modern interpretation on some of them. I didn't care a whole lot (although didn't dislike) the first few songs on the CD. "What the World Needs Now" was speeded up and it didn't work for me as well as Jackie DeShannons version and others. The Cd really got going for by with "Bridge Over Troubled Water". I loved everything on the CD from that point on. This woman can really sing, real talent here. She can belt it out and hold notes.It amazed me how clearly she enunciated the next word after coming off holding a note for a long time. I would have been breathless. Some of her singing does leave me breathless. I hear she is working on a new album to come out in 2010. I hope so. This 4 to 5 stars. I'm qubbling over how some of the songs were arranged, but the vocal talent will jump out of the speakers at you.

GET HAPPY says as much about the audience and rules people follow in an imaginary music industry than it says about the artist, Peggy March. If you go through contemporary clips of her on youtube from the past 10-20 years, you'll feel her spunk and power.

To a degree you can get a grasp of Peggy's personality from the songs on GET HAPPY (not that every song has an altogether happy theme), and that is that she likes these songs, which include something from Simon and Garfunkel and the German version of "Mack the Knife." There is also one song she wrote "It's That Time Again," and it's melodic with some lyrical flow. And she sings it with clarity.

Why can't she do more of her own songs? Two or three covers can be included only if they fit the vibe of the album. Let people see inside her. People should and do need to hear perspectives from singer/songwriters of all ages.

The way the music industry is--with the record labels doing their big hype and all the other acts having boutique businesses, it seems to me that Peggy could also make something that comes from more of her heart, sell it to the diehards, and then make it available on line, at shows, and through other avenues.