Rebecca Ferguson - Lady Sings The Blues
Rebecca Ferguson has announced her 3rd album will be released on 9th March and is entitled Lady Sings The Blues.
It is a song for song re interpretation of Billies Holliday's 1956 album of the same title.
This a video about the making of the album
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/news/a621232/rebecca-ferguson-reinterprets-billie-holidays-lady-sings-the-blues.html#~p1g6GnYYOpqc9r
As it is covers I'm not sure how it will be received but her first two albums were original tracks I think she is entitled to try this.
It is a song for song re interpretation of Billies Holliday's 1956 album of the same title.
This a video about the making of the album
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/news/a621232/rebecca-ferguson-reinterprets-billie-holidays-lady-sings-the-blues.html#~p1g6GnYYOpqc9r
As it is covers I'm not sure how it will be received but her first two albums were original tracks I think she is entitled to try this.
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Comments
Terrible decision.
If she is to be covering Billie Holliday's music, I cant think of anyone better qualified to do that. Her voice is pure blues, and thats what she is best at. I would suspect Rebecca might even have asked to perform this kind of material because she knows that's where her voice excels, and I suspect also its what she enjoys doing most of all. If there are any forseeable problems I would think they would be in the area of finding someone who can write new material that is anywhere near as well written and arranged as those old blues numbers for future records.
Sorry, I don't mean to be rude but have you listened to the entirety of her first album? As I would not describe it as modern pop at all! It's pure class imo, and totally her. To steal your own wording, the finest album ever to come from an X Factor contestant, imo.
But I like Billie Holiday and thought the clips on the video sounded pretty good........very good voice for the style of music.
I hope someone posts these when they reach Youtube as I'll have forgotten all about it by then but would certainly give it a listen if prompted
I'm sure one of the tracks she was singing on the video was 'That Ole Devil Called Love' which isn't on the Billie LP she's meant to be covering.......
This third album intrigues me... a song-for-song cover album is certainly risky, and I do worry about how the record label is treating her. However I'll just be glad to hear her singing some more!
I don't ever recall Leona's personal life ever overshadowing her talk
Same with Rebecca
I think this is a very brave and bold move on rebecca's part. But apart of me feels a tiny bit confused about it. According to an interview, she wasn't even aware of the Lady sings the blue album until very recently. Now why do an album of songs you are still rather new to. I would do a covers album of songs I have loved for a long time and connect to as an artist. The problem is, no one can deliver Billie Holliday songs like her. That was a woman who went through so much horror, so much pain and dispair. She put all of this into her voice and music. Can Rebecca really capture at least some of that emotion? I doubt it. I may be wrong.
But considering she had a baby and was dumped by the father half way through her pregnancy, you can't tell me that there isn't an album of original stuff to be made through that.
I heard the single, Get Happy, yesterday on Radio 2, which was the first time it had been played publicly. It sounded great, I think her voice is well suited to this kind of material and it may well appeal to a Radio 2 audience.
Get Happy is not one of the tracks on the original Lady Sings The Blues recording but I think she has recorded some other Billie Holliday tracks as well as the songs from that album.
For the first time since her debut, I will be purchasing this album. Rebecca as Billie? Genius tbh.
Mind you that was over forty years ago, so I guess the record company presume the world has forgotten about that by now. So time for another?
I'm no fan of Diana Ross but she made a passable effort at it.
Lots of tracks on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjODPpMVrjY
Even the whole 2hr 40min film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUh6ePH9RZU
Like you Doghouse, I'm no fan of Diana Ross but I went to see the movie when it was released in 1972 and enjoyed her acting performance as well as her take on the songs.
I must have been reasonably impressed, as I've still got that double album....somewhere!
http://x2fr-uk.tumblr.com/post/108502767121/http-www-ukmix-org-forums-viewtopic-php-f-9-t-108
Just as some of the British blues bands of the 60s got me turning up the US originals like Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Lightning Hopkins etc
So........these covers and 'homages' do widen our horizons !
Hate to say it but LL and RF are both dull personalities who do not fight back when the press attack them, you see it over and over again.
Leona's personal life did start to eclipse her music career, with her ex boyfriend Lou Al-Chamaa selling his stories about her a few times, he actually used her to come an A+R rep for a music company which has made him a millionaire in his own right, whilst Leona had to sell her Beverly Hills house last year. If you follow anything like blind gossip, there have been all kinds of crazy stories about LL trying to keep her contract, whether they are true or not...
Rebecca's career from the start had some Daily Mail esque backlash on her, just as Kym Marsh's did way back when. But without standing on a soapbox here, her most recent life events make her more difficult to market.
Remember who lost their career in the Alesha Dixon/Harvey/Javine love triangle.
At the end of the day Syco seem to only give their artists that first initial push, when they encounter things like kids (Sam Bailey), or negative press (James Arthur), it is just the beginning of the end for them.
The only one's who were kept on after the winner's album release were
Shayne 500k+
Alexandra 800k+
Leona 1.4m+
Little Mix 340k+
They were kept on because they sold are a good number of albums and all their singles seem to perform well in the charts.
I'm sure they didn't put as much investment into Sam Bailey for example fobbing her off with a cover's album to be fair, but then again Susan Boyle seemed to do fine with that approach and its possible Sam could have too by that logic.
So i guess the key is you need your album to sell at least lets say 300k-400k and have a few successful singles or otherwise you're dropped. I do think Ben will also fall short sadly.
Steve - 150k - dropped
Shayne - 500k - kept on
Leona - 1.4k - kept on
Leon - 140k - dropped
Alexandra - 800k - kept on
Joe - 98k - dropped
Matt - 260k - dropped
Little Mix - 340k & international - kept on
James - 270k - dropped
Sam - 130k - presume dropped. re-release flopped too
Then those same people release second albums
Shayne - 300k
Leona - 800k
Little Mix - 200k & international
Alexandra - 40k - dropped
Then those same people release third albums
Shayne - 60k - dropped
Leona - 60k - a cause for concern; gimmick christmas album planned next
Little Mix - no third album yet released this year
What this just shows is how the music industry works, it doesn't matter if you sold 10m albums two years ago if your new record flops you're done.
Only 4/10 winners were kept on past their winner's albums:o
This is SYCO's conveyer belt. Rebecca sold 600k, then 100k. I do hope she can sell 100k at least otherwise i think she'll be looking for a different label if i'm honest.:o I am one of Rebecca's biggest fans, have both her album, they are both the best ever to come out of the show and even i know if the next record flops she's done with Sony sadly. I think if Freedom had sold more than 100k we wouldn't have been given a gimmick covers album. This is how Syco's head's work. They are after short term gains and not interested in long term potential.
Alexandra wasn't dropped, she got a better offer elsewhere. Too many creative differences behind the scenes. Or if she was, they covered it up nicely.
But i know what your saying. You do need to be contually sell your albums well, otherwise you can be dropped by your second album. It can apply to all artists, not just reality contestants. I recall Paloma Faith and Lily Allen saying if their second albums flop, they will be dropped.
But then there could also be a reason why albums underperform. I didnt like Rebecca ferguson's second album because of the material. She didn't do a lot of promotion for her first album but managed 600k. She didn't do a lot of promotion for her second album (one reason may of been pregnancy) and yet managed 100k. So it goes to show promotion was irelevant, it was the material that did not click with a lot of people.
I liked both of Rebecca's albums and thought that the second one was a step up but obviously a lot of people did not agree with me.
On the subject of the third album I don't think that this is just another covers album. A lot of money and thought has been put into this project as they used the iconic Capitol recording studios in Los Angeles which was used by many legendary performers such as Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. They also used some of the best musicians in Los Angeles on the recording although this may cause a problem in replicating the sound when performing live shows.
Maybe she will use the Jools Holland Band. ;-)
It's not fair Olly and 1D have raked up just under half a million each and nearly 600k for 1D. Now would they have achieved such a tally without the XF promo slots and Xmas timed release? NO. Both are fairly big and would have still done well but not as well.
It's a poor albums climate right now, Ella Henderson is luckily over Xmas she has pushed herself from 120k sold to over 300k. So she's safe. Rebecca deserved a proper launch for the third album - a XF performance. Sadly right now even if she goes Top 10 she won't sell much doing it - last week's album at 10 sold only 8,000 copies. She's going to have quite a good chart run to rack up anything decent in sales. I'm afraid this will give the label justification to drop her. Cher Lloyd suffered the same fate, in Xmas she may have fared better well perhaps also if they hadn't delayed her album so much that no one in the UK and USA virtually was interested anymore....!
Yes it is. The opening post explains that.