Customer Reviews

Torch Time

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Gogi Grant's four RCA albums are outstanding in musical selection, arrangements, production and presentation. And Gogi Grant is all you could ask from a popular singer, with a gorgeous voice, perfect diction, dramatic interpretation and faultless musicality. This most welcome C.D. includes all of Miss Grant's finest RCA album, "Torch Time," plus eight tracks from other RCA albums. It's all beautifully remastered and faultlessly presented. This music certainly has passed the test of time. It's a thrilling today as when it first was issued. For some reason, Gogi Grant has become a footnote in musical history. But that's all wrong. She released consistently topnotch recordings and she sold a ton of records for Era and RCA. She should be counted among the major stars.

I can only echo "A Music Fan's' sentiments. This is a fine compilation of Grant's work-- torchy, articulate & brilliantly
performed. Very quietly her albums are finally being re-released, and they're very welcome. She definitely deserves more recognition.

Gogi Grant is very simply one of the finest singers of this century! Just listen to her brilliant interpretation of "Young and Foolish." It takes my breath away! Or her superb rendition of "Lover Come Back To Me." Glorious Gogi has not only the perfect technique, but the emotional intensity, reaching deep within herself for phenomenal dramatic readings of old standards. We've heard these before, but not like this! "How Deep Is The Ocean?" No deeper than Gogi Grant herself. Her performance of "Summertime" ranks right up there with the best. Never a false note or feeling in this, one of her finest offerings. This is a "must have" CD.

Gogi originally signed to RCA in 1952 but in her brief stay there, nothing much happened. She switched to the small Era label where she had two major American hits, these being Suddenly there's a valley and Wayward wind. In between these two singles, an album was released titled Suddenly there's Gogi Grant. Before another album or single could be recorded, the label went out of business and Gogi returned to RCA, this time as a star instead of an unknown. She never again repeated those triumphs but she recorded three excellent albums of songs from the Great American Songbook. Torch time is presented here in full, augmented by four tracks each from Welcome to my heart and Granted it's Gogi.

This collection is filled with romantic ballads in the finest traditions of such singers as Frances Langford, Peggy Lee, June Christy, Jeri Southern and Julie London. Perhaps the most famous songs here are Bewitched, Summertime, Mad about the boy and The more I see you, but there are many other great songs here that you might recognize.

Some people might wish for an occasional up-tempo song to shake things up a bit but there are none here. Gogi proved elsewhere, particularly on Wayward wind, that she could sing a variety of songs but this album is limited to romantic ballads. I don't mind that as Gogi is so good at this type of song.

If you enjoy romantic ballads by the other singers I've already mentioned, you will love Gogi's music, especially this collection.

Kudos to Taragon for rescuing this fine album from oblivion. Grant is at her best singing torchy standards, and the bonus tracks are also excellent. Norah Jones, eat your heart out! Check out other Taragon reissues of neglected 50s artists including Kay Starr.

Gogi originally signed to RCA in 1952 but in her brief stay there, nothing much happened. She switched to the small Era label where she had two major American hits, these being Suddenly there's a valley and Wayward wind. In between these two singles, an album was released titled Suddenly there's Gogi Grant. Before another album or single could be recorded, the label went out of business and Gogi returned to RCA, this time as a star instead of an unknown. She never again repeated those Era triumphs but she recorded three excellent albums of songs from the Great American Songbook. Torch time (this album) is the best of all, though the other two are also brilliant.

This collection is filled with romantic ballads in the finest traditions of such singers as Frances Langford, Peggy Lee, June Christy, Jeri Southern and Julie London. Perhaps the most famous songs here are Bewitched, Summertime, and about the boy, but there are many other great songs here that you might recognize.

Some people might wish for an occasional up-tempo song to shake things up a bit but there are none here. Gogi proved elsewhere, particularly on Wayward wind, that she could sing a variety of songs but this album is limited to romantic ballads. I don't mind that because Gogi is so good at this type of song.

If you enjoy romantic ballads by the other singers I've already mentioned, you will love Gogi's music, especially this collection.

Tracks

They say it's wonderful
The thrill is gone
Poor butterfly
My man
Bewitched bothered and bewildered
Lover come back to me
Yesterdays
Summertime
Something wonderful
I didn't know what time it was
Young and foolish
Mad about the boy

A friend was in my car while I was playing the Patsy Cline version of "The Wayward Wind", and he said, "oh, that was a big Gogi Grant hit". My response was, "who?"

He said she was big in the 50's and early 60's when his parents used to listen to her at home. So, with my curiosity piqued, I checked youtube and found a few samples of her singing. I wasn't exactly blown away by her version of "The Wayward Wind" as compared to Cline's, but I was intrigued enough with the erratic youtube fare to order a couple of double albums: "Her Very Best" and "With All My Heart". (The album "Torch Time " constitutes the larger part of the second disc of "With All My Heart".)

What a shock. Here was an interpreter of songs by Gershwin, Porter, and other great American songwriters who should be among the top ranks of pop singers. The exquisite soulfulness that infuses her beautiful tone, wide range, and supreme vocal control gave me goosebumps as I listened to songs I thought I already knew in their best versions.

"Poor Butterfly" is a little-known piece that Julie Andrews sang in the movie "Thoroughly Modern Millie" while she was at the top of her voice. "My Man" is the Barbra Streisand show stopper thrown defiantly into the face of the fate that deprived Fanny Brice of the love of her life. "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" has hitherto been almost exclusively owned by the great Ella Fitzgerald. Yet here was the far-less-known Gogi Grant, giving each one of these songs nuances, depth, and an ineffably sad beauty that pulled meaning out of them I had not heard before. And so it continued throughout the album, with her gorgeous rendition of "Summertime" from "Porgy and Bess", "Something Wonderful" and . . . well, on and on it went.

Gogi Grant is a name every lover of American pop music should know as well as the other great ladies mentioned above.

Why isn't she? Well, who knows? She didn't have a movie career that kept her in front of the masses that saw Streisand and Andrews and carried their reputations into the video era. And she didn't have the consistent association with the greatest of American songwriters that Fitzgerald had with Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and others. And she didn't have the early death of Cline and Garland that elevated them into the status of legends before changes in public taste made them less relevant as living artists.

But for anyone who, regardless of era, loves good songwriting impeccably sung, Gogi Grant is a must have.