Lorraine Ellison: Sister Love - The Warner Bros. Recordings (1966-1972) ... plus

Lorraine Ellison is almost a perfect cult soul singer: she was blessed with a unique, powerful voice, she had two stone-cold classics to her name -1966's 'Stay with Me' and 'Try (Just a Little Bit Harder),' which was later popularized by Janis Joplin - which is enough success to get her remembered by aficionados but not enough to make her a star. It's also enough to suggest that Ellison deserved to be a star, that she had the talent and the material that deserved a wider audience, but like a lot of artists with a cult following, she's a great talent that may be an acquired taste for most listeners. This exhaustive three-disc set, which was originally released in a limited run of 5000 copies, certainly suggests as much. For Ellison devotees, this is pretty much the Holy Grail, since it represents the first time all of her prime material has been released on CD. It has her first three LPs - the 1966 debut Introducing Miss Lorraine Ellison b/w Heart & Soul and 1969's Stay with Me, both produced by Jerry Ragovoy, and the Ted Templeton-produced 1974 album Lorraine Ellison - plus various singles and sessions from the early '70s, a bunch of rarities and a whole disc of unreleased demos from 1972. This certainly fills the need that devoted Ellison fans have and in some ways exceeds their expectations, since it contains some wonderful rarities, just like the slow-burning 'Haven't I Been Good to You,' recorded in 1967; the loose, funky, gospel-inflected 'Woman, Loose My Man' from 1970; the Al Kooper written and produced 'Let Me Love You,' a 1970 session which is paired with 'Doin' Me Dirty,' taken from the same sessions and originally released on the Ichiban compilation I have already posted in my other blog; 'Dear John,' recorded at Muscle Shoals in 1970; a version of Carole King's 'You've Got a Friend' from 1971; and three outtakes from the Templeton album, 'When You Count the Ones You Love,' 'Sister Love,' 'Sweet Years' . It also includes the rarities that showed up on previous comps, the disc of stark piano-and-voice demos and three songs I added as bonus tracks at the end of disc 1: both sides of the 1966 single 'I Dig You Baby' b/w 'Don't Let It Go to Your Head' & the Northern Soul stomper 'Call Me (Anytime You Need Some Lovin')'. Certainly Sister Love not only will satisfy Ellison's cult, but will also convert some of the curious, since it does illustrate that she was an artist with a broad range and specific gifts as a writer and a singer. http://www.allmusic.com/

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Lurlean Hunter: Night Life (1956) / Stepping Out (1958)

Singer Lurlean Hunter made five albums on her own during the second half of the '50s, starting out as a Lonesome Gal on RCA and winding up still feeling Blue & Sentimental for Atlantic. She was discovered in Chicago where she had been singing in many clubs, including a collaboration with drummer Red Saunders that held forth at the Club DeLisa. Hunter's move to New York City in 1955 was prompted by RCA's interest in recording her. The singer's recording career actually began before she left the Windy City at the behest of indie jazz labels, some of them quite short-lived — such as Seymour, with a catalog topping out at four releases. The press described Hunter as a "blues thrush" in announcing her interpretations of three numbers actually written by the label's owner, producer and record store owner Seymour Schwartz. The latter promotional blurb inevitably told some truth about Hunter's stylistic traits, if not her relation to winged fauna. Her recordings were more about rhythm & blues and pop than jazz, yet were done in an era when such sessions often involved fine mainstream jazz players in the accompaniment. This album, Night Life (1956), for example, featured pianist Hank Jones and tenor saxophonist Al Cohn. It is actually one of the classiest records from Lurlean, much richer and more jazz-based than the sometimes-bluesy cover images she was given, a quality that sounds especially great here amidst fuller backings from Manny Albam, an arranger who really helps Hunter cross over strongly for the set. The record is beautifully done, poised, but still filled with soul and feeling, and other players on the date include Joe Newman on trumpet, and Barry Galbraith on guitar. There are great interpretations of some lesser-known numbers like 'Moondrift' and 'Night Life' - plus 'Gentleman Friend', 'What a Difference a Day Makes', 'Have You Met Miss Jones', and 'Sunday'. Lurlean's mellow smooth sound can be also fully appreciated on her second release for RCA/Vik, 'Stepping Out' (1958). This album has got a nice jazzy feel too (thanks mostly to an eight-piece jazz group who provide backing in four of the tracks), and despite the occasional presence of strings courtesy of Phil Moore and His Orchestra, these are neither sleepy nor intrusive and the result is really top notch overall. It includes some stunning renditions of standards like 'Old Devil Moon', 'Blues in the Night', 'You Do Something to Me' and 'Under a Blanket of Blue', amongst others.Hunter's final recordings were done in 1964, at which point she was still well under 40 years old. She is known to have died young, although details of this tragedy are murky. In one version of the story she was knocked off by a mobster lover, yet whether anybody was really that mean to Lurlean cannot be completely confirmed. http://www.allmusic.com/

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