Jennifer Warnes - Famous Blue Raincoat: 20th Anniversary Edition
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CD Details
Artist: Jennifer WarnesEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Collector's Edition
CD Release Date: 2007-08-07
Music Label: Shout Factory
Soundtracks:
- First We Take Manhattan
- Bird On a Wire
- Famous Blue Raincoat
- Joan Of Arc
- Ain't No Cure For Love
- Coming Back To You
- Song Of Bernadette
- A Singer Must Die
- Came Do Far For Beauty
- The Night Comes On
- Ballad Of the Runaway Horse
- If It Be Your Will
- Joan Of Arc
Music reviews of Famous Blue Raincoat: 20th Anniversary Edition
Music Review: A wonderful collaboration of great singer and a very great songwriter
Rating: 5 Stars
I have been a Leonard Cohen fan since discovering as teen THE SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN. Except for Bob Dylan, I had never found another songwriter who could match these songs for complete lyrical brilliance, and here, many years later, still have not. Many singer-songwriters write songs that are crafted for their own particular styles, and the songs do not travel well to other performers. But Dylan and Cohen's songs as good or better when performed by others, proving that these two are not just great performers, but writers of truly great songs. The true mark of being a great songwriter is that the songs travel well into new contexts and into the performances of other singers and groups.
When Jennifer Warnes released this collection of Cohen songs, she was preeminently qualified to do so, having performed with Cohen both in concert and on recordings as a back up singer. Here she put together a wonderful selection of Cohen's finest songs and reinterpreted them from a female perspective. On some songs this took minimal efforts, such as "Joan of Arc." In concert Cohen had often had either Warnes of Julie Christensen to sing the part of Joan, while taking the part of fire himself. This is, however, the one studio recording that presents how Cohen performs the song life, Warnes becoming a tragic Joan and Cohen joining on her the album to be her fire. Cohen also gave Warnes one of his best songs to debut, "First We Take Manhattan." It is a glorious, bizarre, fierce attack on eighties cultural pretensions, provocatively bathing it in fascist imagery, a song that proved that Cohen, who was at the time this album was released was considered past his prime, could still pen a magnificent song. "Song of Bernadette" is another highlight on the album, but my favorite number on the album is Warnes's extraordinary cover of the album's title cut, "Famous Blue Raincoat." Cohen sang it originally as a 4 a.m. letter to his wife's seducer, who has left NYC to live elsewhere. The calm and cool exterior of the words belies the hidden pain and passion that have caused him to write. As Warnes sings it, she becomes not the offended party, but a concerned, saddened friend of all. The shift in viewpoint alters the song entirely. And Warnes sings it with all the power of a great chanteuse.
Though Warnes had long been known as a gifted singer, this was her break out album. She emerged from the back ranks of American singers to become known as one of the premiere interpreters of song in America. And the album did more than merely establish Warnes as an important artist. Leonard Cohen, after great initial success in the late sixties and decreasing but definite success in the seventies, was in the eighties in a period of decline. More and more, his albums tended to contain a few amazing songs with some astonishing bland ones. Too often the gems were ignored in favor of the weak cuts. There had been a decided drop in quality of his albums for some time. But FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT created a new interest in Cohen, and only a year later, Cohen capitalized on the success of Warnes's album in general and her cover of "First We Take Manhattan" to put it on a new album of songs, his best album sing his SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN debut. I'M YOUR MAN started off with "First We Take Manhattan" (which was made into an MTV video) but progressed to a very strong set of songs, including not just "I'm Your Man," "Ain't No Cure" (another song Warnes had covered on her album), and "Tower of Song," to what might be his greatest song of the past twenty years, "Everybody Know," a scathing dissection of sexual mores in the post-sexual revolution generation. Not just this, the success of FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT and I'M YOUR MAN led to a reexamination of Cohen's more recent albums, and from them a number of masterpieces were rediscovered, most prominently "Hallelujah" from 1985's VARIOUS POSITIONS.
Might Cohen's reascendance have taken place without Warnes's cover album? Perhaps. Probably. But there is no doubt that this was the right album at the right time, not only elevating her as an artist but properly honoring the man whose songs she so brilliantly covers.
Description of Famous Blue Raincoat: 20th Anniversary Edition
On Famous Blue Raincoat: The Songs of Leonard Cohen, Jennifer Warnes rearranged and reinterpreted some of Leonard Cohen's greatest songs for a unique album that remains the ultimate tribute to Cohen's music. It was greeted with rave reviews, and made numerous year-end best-of lists. This deluxe new reissue contains four previously unreleased songs and a 24-page booklet with rare photos from Warnes' personal collection.Best known for such pop hits as the Oscar- and Grammywinning duets "(I've Had) The Time of My Life," with Bill Medley, from the film Dirty Dancing, and "Up Where We Belong," with Joe Cocker, from the film An Officer and a Gentleman, Jennifer Warnes has earned her greatest acclaim for Farmous Blue Raincoat, considered by many to be one of thebest albums of the '80s
Features four previously unreleased recordings
Digitally remastered from the original analog tapes
Deluxe booklet that tells the story behind one of the most acclaimed albums of all time
"Her voice is like the California weather--filled with sunlight , but there's an earthquake behind it." --Leonard Cohen
Since Ella Fitzgerald never produced a songbook of Leonard Cohen songs, Jennifer Warnes's plush 1986 tribute is the next best thing. The sleekly seductive "First We Take Manhattan" is gilded by the guitars of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robben Ford. Warnes doesn't add much to an evergreen like "Bird on a Wire," but she lays claim to the noirish title song with a confidential vocal that complements the chamber-pop arrangement. "Song of Bernadette" is a ripened gem, and the selection where Warnes lets down her refined vocal technique to reveal deep emotions. More often, Warnes is as professionally accomplished on this well-chosen set as her band of studio pros. --John Milward
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