Customer Reviews

Pick Yourself Up

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is my all time favorite Anita O'day Album. Anita O'day is five steps beyond amazing. Her vocal style can't be beat. Every song she sings gets the special O'day treatment and is forever more her own. The track listing of this album is just chocked full of winners! My favorite is Anita's rendition of 'Stars Fell On Alabama'. Its beautiful and moving. You can just feel the magic of the moment she is describing. Other super hits include the slinky 'Sweet Georgia Brown', the peppy 'Pick Yourself Up' and the bittersweet 'There's A Lull In My Life'. Also, this Cd gives you alternative takes on songs and the rockin bonus tracks 'Getaway and The Chase' and the classic 'Rock and Roll Waltz'. This is one of the records I play when I want to get into a good mood. It always makes me smile. Bottom line, Its a FANTASTIC album at a SUPER price. Don't miss it!

It's a solid gas (if you can imagine such a state) to bump into this album again! I owned it on vinyl when it came out around 1960, and lost it to a jazz drummer on Mountain Drive in Santa Barbara. He also copped my girl friend, but that's another story. I almost played the grooves off that platter while I had it, and can pretty much remember the whole thing still. Very glad to find it again, and to recommend it to you.

Anita O'Day is one of the greatest jazz singers to emerge from the 40's, and was and is the best bebop singer from the 50's till present. This re-issue of the lp PICK YOUSELF UP WITH ANITA is one of her best lp's and is highly reccomended as are all of her verves. HIGHLY RECOMENDED.

Also see Anita O'DAy live next time you're in Los Angeles, she often performs at the Atlas, the Chaya Brassarie, and The Grape Vine.

One of Anita's greatests. That's to say: the first 12 songs on the original LP with (of course) "Sweet Georgia Brown", The Man With The Horn, etc. are great! This CD shows Anita at her best, with excellent backing musicians. A must have for Jazz fans!
Between the 9(!) added songs on this CD are two "alternate" versions: one of "Let's Face The Music And Dance" and "Stars Fell On Alabama", and although I listened to the tracks many times: I cannot hear any difference with the original versions on this same CD. Redundant, these tracks, as far as I'm concerned.
Also: I cannot see the added value of the weak, and at the time unsuccesful popsong "The Rock And Roll Walz". The rest of the extra's is not bad, but by far not as good as the tracks of the original LP.
Altogether: a great CD but, because of the weaker 9 extra songs, just not 5 stars.

Very good mid-1950s album from fantastic Anita O'Day who had singing along Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton in previous decade but after she left her big band canary years behind,she turned out some really great solo albums for "Verve".
Music - Benny Goodman,Irving Berlin for example - melted out of the shape when O'Day approaches it and she plays with it like snake charmer,her take on "Sweet Georgia Brown" is truly must-hear,its actually variations on what she would perform on Newport Jazz festival later.
She starts slowly,with drumms only than swings it and finally almost turns it into rock'n'roll,this is masterpiece of the album.
O'Day has very particular coulour of voice - its not girlish or specially feminine,its best described as whiskey-soaked and you can tell she was a colourful character and had her own will & way with things. God knows she probably paid for it,but I like her anyway and always respect eccentric outsiders.

Maybe there are a tow or three others like "Sings The Winners" but this is a DOD from one of the great late swing beginners who then had a second and better career (after Krupa which was a waaaay modern almost bop/swing outfit).Her output with Norman Granz is incredible and equals in many way the work he did in it's weep with the "category Of One" Ella.This,"Anita", the Lp with Tjader.She had that white West Coast sound like June Christy or the great Chris Connors but among them she deserves to be in the same breath with Billie,Ella,Sassy,Dinah,and Betty.She had a hard life with mean and drugs but was survivor and had a it all from a sense of wit to perfect phrasing.Just catch her in seminal jazz film "Jazz On A Summer's Day" in that crazy fringed hat.A great LP by one of the greatest singers ever.
Peace
Chazz
Check out [...] and give and pass the message

SHE WAS A TRUE ORIGINAL. AND I ALSO READ HER AUTO BIO. AND THERE WERE A LOT OF INTERESTING FACTS IN HER BOOK AS WELL.

I have a cat who runs out to greet me every night, then insists on walking me around the block (more than one neighbor has done a double take at discovering Emmy is not a dog). At bedtime she waits til the light's out, then shoos my other two cats out of the bed before depositing herself opposite my face, exactly an arm's length away. If I try to lessen the space, her paw is immediately on my nose, maintaining the crucial distance that marks her difference from her human counterparts.

For anyone who's allergic to cats, Anita O'Day has to be the closest surrogate--more companionable than Andrew Lloyd Weber's version, yet more detached than Peggy Lee's (thinking of her dubbed voice on "Lady and the Tramp"). In fact, like Peggy Lee--not to mention Dinah Shore, Doris Day, Rosemary Clooney, Ella, Sarah--Anita is very much a product of the swing era and the big bands, perhaps epitomizing its hot sounds more effectively than any other female singer, most notably on her recorded duet with Roy Eldridge, "Let Me Off Up town."

But the difference between this survivor and her peers is the unmistakable ethos of "cool" that insures you and Anita will always remain strangers to each other. She purrs "Stars Fall on Alabama" and embraces you with buttery vibrations on "Young Man a Horn," yet she remains as autonomous and inscrutable as the "Sweet Georgia Brown" who appears no less dangerous than Circe or Medusa in Anita's singular portrayal of her (she does so visually in the remarkable film documentary, "Jazz on a Summer's Day"). And when Anita sings "I Won't Dance," you'd better believe it--don't ask her!

If vulnerability, innocense, and charisma are not high on your list of criteria for jazz singers, this recording belongs in the pantheon of great recorded examples of the Great American Songbook. One caveat: Anita's singing may "too much" in the most positive sense, but the "muchness" of this remastered collection seems counterproductive, as at least 5 of the 9 bonus tracks merely serve to detract from the focused excellence of Anita's singing on the main program. The producers should have known what cat lovers have long since discovered: the strongest relationships are not based on the expectation of reciprocated generosity.