Brook Benton - Songs I Love to Sing (Dig)

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Music reviews of Songs I Love to Sing (Dig)

Music Review: RUSH IN YOU FOOLS!
Rating: 5 Stars

The liner notes offer some insight as to how this collection of standards
came to be; Brook was convalescing after an illness and came up with a
list of songs he'd wanted to lay down on wax. The results are stunning;
the emotion apparent. Special attention must be given to the arrangements here.
While I suspect they were all done by Belford Hendricks, (who did wonders on
the Mercury label with Dinah Washington, and also with Nat "King" Cole on some of
his Capitol LP's, most notably RAMBLIN' ROSE) whoever did them is to be
commended. The perfect mixture of strings with muted horn and in some places guitar really puts
this collection over the top.
I guess we should start from the top, as they say, and the old chestnut
MOONLIGHT IN VERMONT gets a fine treatment here by Brook. The tempo is
just right, and sets the tone for the rest of the album. The classic Styne/Cahn
IT'S BEEN A LONG, LONG TIME is also included here, a wonderful and world-weary
reading complete with "loping" strings that guide Brook's gentle vocals.
LOVER COME BACK TO ME picks up the tempo just slightly to a nice, walking
style. IF YOU ARE BUT A DREAM, based on some overblown classical piece of
decades gone by, is whittled down to a lover's plea and mastered by Brook and the orchestra
alike, and possibly the best song on the whole album. For many Brook Benton fans,
the most recognizable and sought after track may very well be the Gershwin evergreen
THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME, for it is here that Brook gives his most
thoughtful vocalizing in years. Long a favorite of THIS music lover and reviewer, I'm glad
to see this song (as well as this entire album) at last available. Brook's mournful humming over
the intro and at the bridge during BABY WON'T YOU PLEASE COME HOME will tug at your
heartstrings and put the message across of a lost lover longing for reconciliation.
I DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT YOU, written by husband and wife team of Peggy Lee and
Capitol records stalwart Dave Barbour, is usually treated as something of a up-tempo tune.
Again, Brook slows down the pace and adds a nice verse at the top to bring us in. This is
a classic example of taking a usually brisk paced song and making something new and
beautiful of it. Brook's vocals here are flirtatious and sensitive at the same time.
The inclusion of the Weill-Anderson standard SEPTEMBER SONG brings immediate
class to any collection, and while it's been done a million times before, Brook keeps
it sounding fresh while still keeping the wistful qualities of the time-tested lyric in tact.
At first listening, one might suppose the closer, FOOLS RUSH IN doesn't belong here;
a swinger mixed in a bag of tender ballads, but a closer look reveals just the opposite:
The first eleven tracks describe love and romance in some form. Perhaps the theme
of the album is a contemplated romance, the vocalist enraptured by the thought, pros
and cons of falling, and then, at last, giving into the feeling and going "where angels fear to tread".
A wonderful reissue of a long out of print album from one of the best singers of the era.

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