RED HOT & BLUE

Red Hot AIDS Benefit Series, Cole Porter | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: GOLDRUSH
• ASIN: B000005JFX
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #88,022 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #55 in Music > Miscellaneous > Poetry, Spoken Word & Interviews > Poetry

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

There's a long tradition of artists banding together for a noble cause, but--needless to say--good intentions are no guarantee of good art. Fortunately, the twain do meet and the project even succeeds with creative flair in this compilation. It kicked off the Red Hot AIDS Benefit series back in 1990 and in fact launched its own sort of minigenre, including theme albums devoted to George Gershwin and Duke Ellington. In fact, this eclectic mix of Cole Porter covers interpreted by a wide swath of contemporary artists unfurls a pretty ambitious agenda in addition to its message of AIDS awareness and compassion. Here, the legacy of this ultra-sophisticated, closeted master of the popular song from the era of the "lost generation" is presented as a source of rejuvenating inspiration. Porter's craft seems validated by the very flexibility of the original songs as they get retrofitted to encompass styles ranging from U2 and Tom Waits to Jungle Brothers. There's an occasional miscalculation (Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop's didactic "updating" of Porter's bon vivant wit doesn't compare well with the original), but moments of stunning fusion abound (Sinéad O'Connor and Annie Lenox contribute especially memorable gems). Instead of getting lost in translation, Red Hot + Blue adds a whole new dimension to the art of swellegance. --Thomas May

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a Wild Cole Porter Ride!, January 12, 2005

By 

M. Elizabeth Pietrzak "driftingcloud" (Claremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Red Hot & Blue: Cole Porter Tribute (Audio CD)

A tribute album of Cole Porter tunes as performed by some of the best musicians to come out of the 1980s. David Byrne of the Talking Heads, the Pogues, Tom Waits, U2, The Fine Young Cannibals, Annie Lennox, Jimmy Somerville of Bronski Beat, The Thompson Twins, Sinead O'Connor. There are three fantastic reasons to purchase this album: 1) It's 20 Cole Porter standards, 2) The album was produced in 1990 to benefit AIDS research, 3) The incomparable lineup of the musicians, mentioned above, plus Neneh Cherry, the Neville Brothers, Debbie Harry of Blondie and Iggy Pop, KD Lang, Erasure, Jody Watley, Aztec Camera and more.

Any one of these three reasons should be reason enough to buy this album, and if you score with all three on your list, then you will be overwhelmingly pleased. If you are simply a Cole Porter fan, have never heard of these bands and don't care to support AIDS research, then you will likely be unhappy with this album. But if you are even a fan of just one or two of these artists, the rest of the album will surprise and seduce you.

Perhaps the best track on the whole album is The Neville Brothers' "In the Still of the Night." Simply enchanting. David Byrne shines with the best of the best work from the Talking Heads era, African drumming and rhythms, on "Don't Fence Me In." Kirsty MacColl sings with the Pogues in a medley of "Miss Otis Regrets" and "Just One of Those Things," and for this long-time Pogues fan, it was surprising to find this musically rich track a full decade after the Pogues had split up. Wish I had known about this album in 1990 rather than finding it in 2004. Tom Waits takes some heat with other reviewers with his cover of "It's All Right With Me," but those reviewers obviously wouldn't like ANY Tom Waits tunes. I think it's a fantastic layer to this already rich hued album, and Waits fills his portion with gusto and relish. It is truly the tune I love to listen to the most, partly because it follows Byrne's cut and mostly because it just sucks me into another world, that Tom Waits World, and repeatedly sucks the breath out of me. I especially love the part where it seems like the song is over and then Waits comes back in for a reprise, doubly so after reading how much is pisses off some of the other reviewers. :-)

Neneh Cherry offers a prologue to the album that melds directly into her cover of "I've Got You Under My Skin" and the Fine Young Cannibals wail into "Love For Sale" with Roland Gift's voice nearly being mistaken for a muted trumpet. How did he do that? Iggy Pop and Debby Harry have too much fun with "Well Did You Evah" and until I looked at the credits I actually thought it was John Doe and Exene Cervenka from X. They should have been asked to contribute to this album. And Screamin' Jay Hawkins, he has a cut of "I Love Paris" that while is a bit more traditional than Les Negresses Vertes' version which is pure fun, Hawkins covering another Porter tune would have added more layers of spice to this CD. The Thompson Twins and Erasure shine with two songs I would never expect to hear from them, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and "Too Darn Hot," respectively. U2, Annie Lennox, KD Lang, Jody Watley, Sinead O'Connor and Aztec Camera all provide the solid stability of their talents to flesh out the core of the album, with the color added by the previously mentioned artists. The two tracks that could easily be lost and replaced by better artists are Salif Keita with "Begin the Beguine" and the Jungle Brothers with "I Get a Kick."

Purchase this album. It's a great tribute to Cole Porter and an even better contribution to supporting AIDS research. Get it to honor rare work of these excellent artists. All thumbs up! Five stars and more!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Red Hot Tribute, October 27, 2000

By 

Misty Jones (san antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Hot & Blue: Cole Porter Tribute (Audio CD)

It's a challenge to find a cover album these days that lives up to the legend it's attempting to celebrate. "Red Hot And Blue," the first out of the "Red Hot" series, is by far the best out of the series, and one of the best collections of cover tunes ever assembled.

Yes, it's a tribute to the late Cole Porter and his timeless classics, and yes, producers donated their royalties to AIDS charities. But even putting the cause aside, this is an absolutely fabulous record.

Highlights include U2's alluring, almost eerie version of "Night And Day," and a tear-jerker version of "Everytime We Say Goodbye" by Annie Lennox.

David Byrne of Talking Heads does a down-home version of "Don't Fence Me In" which is quite laugh-inducing, along with the scary duo of Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop giving their take on "Well Did you Evah."

We could keep listing big names here - Sinead O Connor, Thompson Twins, Tom Waits - a wide spectrum of genre and style which serves up success.

Others in the series have been hit-and-miss, but this record is a definite must.

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Mix of the Truly Sublime and the Truly Dire, June 20, 2004

By 

Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Red Hot & Blue: Cole Porter Tribute (Audio CD)

Cole Porter (1891-1964) was among the closeted gay artists of his era--and the idea of collecting modern versions of his work for release as an AIDS fundraiser was truly inspired. But the hard truth is that few singers have the vocal skills that a Porter song demands, and the resulting RED HOT + BLUE is an extremely inconsistent mix of the truly sublime and the truly dire.

On the sublime side, the Neville Brothers offer a truly elegant reworking of the seldom performed but incredibly beautiful "In The Still of the Night," infusing the delicate melody with their own unique multicultural sound to tremendous effect. Fine Young Cannibals also do a remarkable version--and one that would have been sure to bring a wicked grin to Porter's face--of the often censored "Love for Sale."

Many other selections are equally effective. Although U2's version of "Night and Day" takes some getting used to, it is worth the effort and becomes unexpectedly haunting. Sinead O'Connor and K.D. Lang score memorably with "You Do Something To Me" and "So In Love;" and Annie Lennox offers the single finest version of "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" I have ever heard.

But the rest of the thing ranges from the merely "interesting" to the flat out awful. Neneh Cherry is one of the few rap artist I actually like--but she would have done better to take fewer liberties with "I've Got You Under My Skin," and frankly both Tom Waits and Salif Keita should have stayed in bed on the days they were scheduled to record their versions of "It's Alright With Me" and "Begin the Beguine." Indeed, Keita's "Begin the Beguine" is easily the single most awful version of any Porter song by any artist that I've ever heard.

The rest of the selections are in the "also ran" range, which is to say not memorably bad but not memorably good either. At times this is a major disappointment--when you consider that Andy Bell of Erasure has a remarkable voice it seems a pity to have reduce him a dance-track-ish "Too Darn Hot." Perhaps the single greatest disappointment in the collection is Debbie Harry, who one would expect to work wonders with a classic Porter tune... but who finds herself paired with Iggy Pop in a throw-away version of "Well, Did You Evah," which can only be described as a humiliating miscalculation and a true waste of talent.

Still, in spite of a host of misfires and just flat out bad ideas, when it's good RED HOT + BLUE is exceptionally good--and enough so to make up for the duds and bring the whole thing in at a solid four stars. Just bear in mind that you'll probably want to make your own edits!

GFT, Amazon Reviewer