Purr-Fect: The Eartha Kitt Collection [Import]

Eartha Kitt | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 5, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Spectrum Audio UK
• ASIN: B00004TA90
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #29,315 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #77 in Music > Imports > Broadway & Vocalists

Track Listings

1. Just An Old Fashioned Girl

2. I Want To Be Evil

3. Do It Again

4. Lola Lola

5. Mack The Knife

6. Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)

7. All I Want Is All There Is And Then Some

8. My Heart Belongs To Daddy

9. Love For Sale

10. Never On Sunday

11. Uska Dara

12. C'Est Si Bon

13. Yellow Bird

14. Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend

15. Santa Baby

16. A Lady Loves

17. Lilac Wine

18. Whatever Lola Wants

Editorial Reviews

UK compilation for the alluring vocalist who still packs 'em in on the cabaret circuit, best known as the scariest Catwoman on TV's 'Batman' and for her signature hits 'Sanata Baby' and 'C'est Si Bon' both of which are included here. Additional tracks include, 'Just An Old Fashioned Girl', 'I Want To Be Evil', 'Mack The Knife', 'My Heart Belongs To Daddy' and 'Love For Sale'. 18 tracks in all. 2000 release. Standardjewel case.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EARTHA KITT PURRFECT "IN THE ADORABLE FUR" PLAY IT LOUD!, January 17, 2002

By 

Robert Rechter (Melbourne AUSTRALIA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Purr-Fect: The Eartha Kitt Collection (Audio CD)

This new compilation of Eartha Kitt classics is a great clear and crisp C.D. for lovers of 'The Worlds Most Exciting Woman'. This 'Lounge' set is truly exceptional and contains many hard to find gems. Included are superior early 60's re-recordings of 'Just An Old Fashioned Girl', 'C'Est Si Bon' 'My Heart Belongs To Daddy' and a fantastic uptempo version of 'I Want To Be Evil' that shows this feline Catwoman at her best. Miss Kitt is in peak form here doing standards such as 'Love For Sale', 'Whatever Lola Wants', 'Never On Sunday' and the rare 'Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend'. She purrs and growls her way through classy and distinctive renditions of 'Mack The Knife', 'A Lady Loves' and the festive tease 'Santa Baby'. Definitely for the bachelor pad or cocktail party. Robert Rechter. AUSTRALIA Jan 2002.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Have!, January 3, 2001

By 

BostonCook (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Purr-Fect: The Eartha Kitt Collection (Audio CD)

This CD features some great recordings of Eartha's classics ("C'est Si Bon", "Just an Old Fashioned Girl"), as well as some harder-to-find tracks of Eartha singing other 1950s/60s standards. I have an extensive collection of Eartha LPs, but none of them include "Mack the Knife" or "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" or "Whatever Lola Wants," all of which are on this import CD. Another terrific cut is "All I Want Is All There Is (And Then Some)"--Eartha at her best!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In fact, she was--perfect as well as purr-fect., February 23, 2009

By 

Samuel Chell (Kenosha,, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Purr-Fect: The Eartha Kitt Collection (Audio CD)

She may not have had Piaf's musical instrument or the full, flowing facial geography (but what sculpture!) of a Garbo, or the irresistible, girl-next-door wholesome charm of a Garland or Doris Day, but she was the institution of cabaret personified not to mention the most fatally feline femme fatale of them at all--so much so that Orson Welles (like her, an American institution) looked upon her as an epic Circe, even casting her as the woman whose allure led to the Trojan War and to the fall of one of the world's great civilizations (undoubtedly a more convincing Helen than the one cast opposite Richard Burton ten years later). Yet cabaret superstars such as Marlene, Nina, Lena (the inferior Madonna was too exalted to emerge from her panoply of costumes, effects, and microphones long enough to "lower herself" to be a cabaret performer) frequently receive more attention than the inarguable master--Eartha Kitt OWNED cabaret, gifted with deceptively towering talent, superlative linguistic skills, and the sophisticated awareness that allowed her simultaneously to let the audience in on the joke yet be utterly seduced (if not enslaved) by this material woman. We may not have realized it at the time, but for Eartha life was a grand party, and each of us was a privileged guest, privileged to be on her inclusive guest list.

To put it plainly, Eartha Kitt was underrated, and it's somewhat sad that for those who still remember her, her career is essentially reduced to two representative but nonetheless inadequate moments: her recording of "Santa Baby" and her role as The Catwoman in the '60s television series (she alone surpassed all of the Tim Burton big screen versions).

She was smallish, an overcompensating overachiever, and musically limited, but thanks to a prodigious intellect, an acute and lightning-fast mind, and a sense of "theatrically" perhaps rivaled only by Welles, she managed to "play big"--regardless of the venue or the time. In fact, in her last interview--an hour-long spot for PBS telecast in late September of 2009 (she died Dec. 25)--she was as sharp mentally, as animated physically, as alive spiritually, and as sexy and full of play as she must have been 60 years earlier. More than a colossal femme fatale, she was the ultimate impersonation of the type (arguably created by men), playing it so far "over the top" that it was "performance art" at its best.

There's no way to capture such achievement on a recording. The weakness of this collection is that it some of the in-person recordings and patter of "At the Plaza"; the strength of the collection is that it omits "Here's to Life," a song that Eartha insisted on using as a closer in her cabaret act during the last 15 years or so. (The sentiments are understandable, but the song had already received sublime readings from Shirley Horn and Joe Williams, making Eartha seem like a poor "copycat." Moreover, the lyric seemed too "sincere" to fit the playfulness, candor, and irreverence that were so integral to the Kitt persona. With three autobiographies to her credit, this final testament was inevitably anticlimactic if not gratuitous.) Better our heroic, incorrigible octogenarian had ended her act with "I Want to Be Evil." We would have understood, no doubt better than she, that no more appropriate and satisfying "message" could have been issued, demonstrating to the fullest what she hoped to deliver with the lyrics of "Here's to Life."

Buy the CD, but try to catch that last interview on PBS.