Customer Reviews

Laurie Beechman: The Andrew Lloyd Webber Album

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If you like Webbers music and a good female vocalist then this albums by the this late actress and caberet performer is a good bet. Laurie chose a wide variaty ranging from the often covered and the more rate songs like Starlight Express and Half a Moment. She has a strong rich voice and does justice to such belting classics as With One Look, Memory, and Love Changes Everything which I think is her most powerful performence on this CD. Unlike Sara Brightman she does not reach those upper octaves so you can hear these songs in a more subdued setting. Some of the arrangments do stray from what I am used to on the cast recordings, but they are good arangements. Who wants a carbon copy of someone elses version. This fifteen track should serve as an introduction to her recording work and A.L. Webbers if you don't know his stuff. Laurie will be missed!

My introduction to Laurie Beechman was many years ago on the "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" Broadway cast album. Later, a friend gave me the "No One is Alone" album as a gift. Lately, I have searched for more music from this performer, and I found all her albums here. Her performance is flawless, her renditions moving, and her voice uplifting! This album is a treasure!

No one sang an Andrew Lloyd Webber song better than Laurie Beechman who was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in "Joseph" and was "Grizzabella" in "Cats" on Broadway. This collection offers ALW's best showcase with a wide variety of songs. Of course, no one performed "Memory" better than Beechman and her power and range lends itself well to all the tunes on this CD. Among the highlights are "With One Look," "As If We Never Said Goodbye" and "Love Changes Everything." If you like Broadway belters, Beechman is your gal. Her tragic death by ovarian cancer took her from us all too soon.

I am a Lloyd Webber fan and Laurie Beechman does a good job. Some songs are of course better than others, and some songs have been done better by other artists. But unforgettable are "As if we never said goodbye", "With one look", and "Love changes everything". The CD was used, but it sounded and looked as if it were new.

From "As If We Never Said Goodbye" to "Memory," Laurie Beechman represents a unique voice to some oft recorded songs from the musical theater world. Singing Sir Andrew's songbook with arrangements not usually associated with the songs she is doing, Laurie makes the most of the material presented to her. The only downside to this recording is the attempt to make the songs into pop arrangements. They are and always be Broadway songs.

Interesting side note. If you listen to "Half a Moment," you hear a compression of "As If We Never Said Goodbye," with different lyrics pertaining to the song at hand...the tune is the same!!