Word: balladeers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...doesn't just want to dance with somebody, she wants "to feel the heat with somebody," and the vocal scorches. The rest of the album -- a mixture of party songs and love songs -- displays its star's subtler readings, greater vocal nuance, more dynamism and control. On the jazzy ballad Just the Lonely Talking, she eases into an adventurous scat duet with an alto sax. But she can still sing it straight and sweet, as in Michael Masser's romantic elegy Didn't We Almost Have It All, an instant standard with a spiraling melodic line...
Whitney's most meaningful cut has to be I Know Him So Well, a power-pop ballad from the Broadway-bound musical Chess, which she sings with her mother Cissy. In the song, a grandmaster's wife and mistress muse about being unable to fulfill his needs for fantasy and security; in this version, mother and daughter sing about a husband-father, and it makes for an electrifying duet. Throughout the album, the range and vocal glamour displayed offer testimony that Cissy's girl has grown up. Whitney marks graduation day for the prom queen of soul...
...singing telegram--which included a ballad and a kiss for Steiner--was a subtle reminder of the 17-month old contract dispute between Harvard's police union and theadministration...
Other unusual delights kept cropping up. "Any King's Shilling," a new ballad about his grandfather going to war, and "Sleep Of the Just" came across as powerful Richard Thompson-style folk tunes. His reworking of "Inch by Inch" from the personal low LP Goodbye Cruel World redeemed that song from its over-produced vinyl version. And his rendition of "Heathen Town," a b-side of the "Every Day I Write the Book" single was tremendous...
...Dream," a nightmare in which Blue Oyster Cult invades and terrorizes Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, scare you away from Dash Rip Rock. The album's more traditional songs are just as dance-inducing. There is something for nearly everyone: standard rockabilly, straight-ahead rock, jangly pop, and a ballad or two. Even country purists should enjoy the triumphant rendition of Williams' "I Saw the Light...