Pros: Joni's pretty, girlish voice; beautiful songs; lush orchestration; original cover art and notes.
Cons: New release includes three inferior songs.
The Bottom Line: Joni James sang about unrequited love and loneliness, sad love songs with a hint of girlish optimism. If you want the blues, find Lady Day. For bittersweet, this is it.
wovengold's Full Review: Little Girl Blue by Joni James
I'm a sucker for torch songs, and I have a terrible weakness for good dancers. I inherited both traits from my mother -- probably while still in the womb.
Music affected me so deeply when I was a toddler that I cried every time I heard the theme song for the Walt Disney Show. ("M-I-C…K-E-Y… MOUSE..." Think about it: It does sound mournful.) By the time I was eight years old, I had heavy, fluttery crushes on both Gene Kelley and Fred Astaire. And I believed that being in love was the most glorious thing in the world -- even if your love went unrequited. (Mama gave me a big vocabulary, too.)
Early memory, mid-1960s: My beautiful Mama dancing all by herself in the dark, wearing a floaty, swirling, satin ball gown that swished and shimmered as she moved with her invisible partner. My memory supplies the music playing on the hi-fi in the den as a song from Joni James' 1955 torch song album, Little Girl Blue. I was probably five years old; my mom would have been about 26.
Joni James, though not well-known today, was incredibly popular in the 1950s. She fit the times perfectly: A beautiful young woman, graceful and poised, Joni sang with a poignancy that captivated the hearts of her audience. The words that come to mind are "wistful" and "winsome" -- adjectives not used much today.
Critics nowadays scoff at James' status as a singer of torch songs, comparing her unfavorably with Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland. Those ladies are indisputably the Queens of the Blues, but I think the critics are missing the boat on Joni James. Joni didn't sing the blues. She sang about unrequited love, sweet heartache and loneliness, but she didn't sing the blues. She sang sad love songs -- but in a voice that held a hint of girlish optimism.
James' singing was always accompanied by lush orchestration, heavy on the strings. Critics today often call this style "schmaltzy," but again, I think they miss the point. The orchestration is vintage 1950s: beautiful, sweeping, dramatic. Remember, this was a time when couples danced close together, touching. The orchestral arrangements make it almost impossible not to yearn for a good dance partner.
Released in 1955 on the MGM label, Little Girl Blue originally comprised eight songs, including the title song, which became James' signature. Joni also covered several standards of the time, including "These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)," "It's the Talk of the Town," and "That Old Feeling." Also notable but at that time undiscovered were "I'm Through with Love," "In Love in Vain" and "Too Late Now," which received extensive radio play. "Autumn Leaves," now a standard covered by many more famous singers, was introduced here.
Several years later, with the original album still popular, MGM released a second version that included three new tracks: "I Lay Me Down to Sleep," "When You Wish Upon a Star" -- there's that Disney thing again -- and "Where Is That Someone for Me?" These three veer just a tad from from the original torch song flavor, but not enough to jar. I will admit that I enjoy them partly because they were included on the LP my mom had, and I listened to that record so often that it remains inked in my memory, note for note and word for word. "Where Is That Someone for Me" finishes on a swelling, dramatic flourish that makes a good punctuation for the album's end.
Little Girl Blue was digitally re-mastered and released on CD by Tarragon Records in 1995. I'm grateful for this, because I lost the original vinyl LP in a house fire a couple of years ago. But I don't really think the new version is significantly better. (I, unlike many people, am sometimes fond of the hiss and crackle on old records, especially when I've played them so many times that the songs sound incomplete without a pop punctuating a specific verse.)
For the Tarragon edition, James chose to include three "rare bonus tracks," one of which was previously unreleased. Unfortunately, I don't think the three tracks are up to par with the rest of the album. "Anyone But Her" has a hint of teeny-bopper dramatics more in keeping with a bad beach movie. Both that and "He Cried on My Shoulder" include riffs from an electric guitar that seem particularly out of place in a collection of torch songs. Finally, "Only Trust Your Heart" is a pretty, Italian-flavored tune, here accented with a mandolin, but it just doesn't belong in this collection. These bonus tracks are the main reason I've rated the Tarragon CD four stars instead of five.
One thing I do like about the new release is the inclusion of the original liner notes -- full of the effusive praise favored by the copywriters of the time -- and the original cover art. (I still think this is one of the most romantic album covers ever: a beautiful doe-eyed girl wrapped from behind in the arms of a strong man -- and star dust sprinkled on the pink clouds in the background. Schmaltzy, yes. But very pretty, and a little girl's dream image of romance.)
When I first saw the CD, I was terribly disappointed that the cover was a head shot of James -- until I opened it and found the original art on the back of the insert. I simply took it out, turned it over, and voila! I have the cover I remember.
Oh, yes: The liner notes. While the original liner notes were in keeping with the style of the time, the new ones are a bit much. They do provide an interesting history of the (at the time) 40-year-old album, but with a bit too much hyperbole. I'm not sure why this bothers me. Perhaps I just want the old crumbly cardboard album sleeve back in my hands, and this is an excuse for complaining. The CD liner is too slick.
Finally, I'll close with some lines from the original liner notes, because they describe perfectly what makes Little Girl Blue so much like my mom. "Why is Joni the perfect Little Girl Blue?… Give her a lyric about loneliness, about unrequited love, about hope in a time of despair, add a lovely melody -- then you'll find Joni at the peak of her form… There is a pure, chaste quality to her voice…. She has the ability of making you think she might be the girl next door."
My mom was the girl next door, dancing in the dark to these lovely tunes.
~*~
This review is written in honor of my mother, Judy Ann Dolamore Summerlin Stovall, who died 20 years ago this month at the age of 41. I hope I've inherited her indomitable sense of humor and optimism, come what may, as well as her love of torch songs and good dancers.
The review is part of a Mother's Day Write-Off sponsored by naphtalia. Please take time to read the excellent contributions of my fellow participants: Trevsmom, MelissaSRN, lynnzop, fallyn96, jo.com, mellkinwa, Debbie26, leafsbabe01, straight_up, KateTPZ, willthing, mtbat, masonp, diverpam, AshleyA, Social14 and brookeca77.
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