The Beauty of Song, Part Six: Florence Welch

It takes a lot of originality for a rock and roller to stand out in the hip-hop era (an era that, sadly, shows no signs of ending), but with her commanding voice, British rocker Florence Welch certainly passes that test . . . and sets the bar high.

Ms. Welch is the lead singer of Florence + the Machine, one of those traditionalist indie bands struggling to keep the rock and roll light aflame in the twenty-first century.  And they've done it very well, ever since their recording debut in 2009 with the first LP, Lungs.  Subsequent albums such as Ceremonials and How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful as well as singles such as "You've Got the Light," "Never Let Me Go," and what has become the band's signature song, "Ship To Wreck," have followed.  Ms. Welch has also been one of the group's principal songwriters, collaborating a good deal with the Machine's keyboardist, Isabella Summers.

Ms. Welch struggled with dyslexia as a child, but she had encouragement from her paternal grandmother to pursue singing when it became obvious that she had the talent. Many of the songs on the Lungs album were inspired by both of her grandmothers.

Florence + the Machine's fourth album, High as Hope, was released in June 2018.  It was the band's first release on the Virgin label.

That's it for my sixth series of beautiful women in music.  A new A-Z round starts in the coming merry of May. :-)

The Beauty of Song, Part Six: Michelle Phillips

Michelle Phillips is the last surviving member of the Mamas and the Papas, the pop quartet that put Southern California folk-rock on the map before Crosby, Stills and Nash turned it into an institution. 

Born Holly Michelle Gilliam, Michelle Phillips was by her own admission, the typical California girl personified - "the original Marcia Brady," she's called herself.  She married folk singer John Phillips and began writing songs with him, and they later joined with Denny Doherty and Cass Elliott to form the Mamas and the Papas.  Their first album, 1966's If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, was so titled because producer Lou Adler had been amazed by what he saw and heard from them. It featured the hit single "California Dreamin', which Michelle and John wrote together.  They would also co-write the group's 1967 hit "Creque Alley," an autobiographical look at the quartet's beginnings. 

Most of the Mamas and the Papas' hits featured lead vocals from Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot, but Michelle got a lead vocal of her own with the group's cover of the Shirelles' "Dedicated to the One I Love," which was perfect for her soft voice.  (Another Crosby Stills and Nash connection: A lyric from "Dedicated to the One I Love," "The darkest hour is just before dawn," prompted David Crosby to write "Long Time Gone" in the aftermath of Robert Kennedy's assassination.)

After the Mamas and the Papas' breakup, Michelle Philips turned to an acting career, playing John Dillinger's girlfriend, Billie Frechette, in the 1973 film Dillinger and later getting a part in the 1975 Warren Beatty movie Shampoo.   She would still record the occasional single, buts he's never recorded a full solo album.  Her acting work in the eighties was centered on television movies, guest appearances on series, and, primarily, the role of Anne Matheson on the CBS prime-time serial "Knots Landing." It would be her daughter Chynna who would become the big singing star in the Phillips family, along with Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson's daughters, in the early-nineties group Wilson Phillips.

Though she hasn't appeared in a movie since the Norwegian film Betrayal in 2009, Michelle Phillips is still very much Hollywood royalty, be it on the concert stage or on the sound stage.   

The Beauty of Song, Part Six: Karen Oberlin

Don't look for Karen Oberlin on the pop charts; she's not one of those singers.

Karen Oberlin is a jazz and cabaret singer who specializes is traditional pre-rock pop, and she's played all of the prestigious venues in New York - the Oak Room at the Algonquin, Carnegie Hall, the Café Carlyle. The esteemed New York Times pop critic Stephen Holden has said that Ms. Oberlin "has impeccable style" and "musical intelligence," while Rex Reed of the New York Observer said she was "such a welcome addition to the often noisy and pointless cabaret scene that one can even imagine her accompanied by a celesta without causing the slightest hint of boredom."

Ms. Oberlin has done four albums of pop standards, including a live record of songs written by Frank Loeser and a tribute album to Doris Day (an earlier honoree on this blog). 

The Beauty of Song, Part Six: Norah Jones

Noarh Jones is a revered pop singer and musician who has been defying odds and expectations since 2002, when her debut album Come Away With Me was released.

The daughter of concert promoter Sue Jones and the revered sitarist Ravi Shankar, Ms. Jones was destined for a career in music, and fortunately she had the chops to blunt criticism of nepotism in the record business.  Come Away With Me, featuring the single "Don't Know Why," was a huge hit that in 2003 yielded Ms. Jones five Grammys: Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, Record of the Year,  Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (for "Don't Know Why"), and Best New Artist.  The last award should have been the kiss of death for her career - after all, the Starland Vocal Band won the 1977 Best New Artist Grammy - and when Come Away With Me went platinum ten times over, it raised the stakes for Ms. Jones when it came time to follow it up.

She did not disappoint, releasing Feels Like Home in 2004  to generally positive reviews and enjoying another hit single with "Sunrise."  Her success as an adult-contemporary artist irked some critics, though, as they found her blend of folk and jazz boring.  They didn't expect anything much from her going forward.  But her group the Little Willies, which featured her on piano and vocals and with singer Richard Julian, guitarist Jim Campilongo, bassist Lee Alexander, and drummer Dan Rieser, was another surprise. The Little Willies did a few originals and old country and blues songs in their 2006 debut album, and it proved Ms. Jones as being more than just a balladeer for record buyers who hated contemporary twenty-first century pop music. on drums. 

Ms. Jones' 2007 album Not Too Late showed a growing confidence in her songwriting, as she was beginning to write more of her tunes.  She pretty much left the doubters doubting their own judgement.  The Fall, from 2009, continued in that vein. 

Norah Jones has remained active in the 2010s, releasing two more solo albums and participating in a second Little Willies release in 2012 (which featured covers of songs from Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn, among others).  She's collaborated with artists ranging from Dolly Parton and Bonnie Raitt to the Foo Fighters and Wyclef Jean.  Having just turned forty, she still has many years of music ahead of her.

The Beauty of Song, Part Six: Lani Hall

Lani Hall is a jazz-pop vocalist who is best known as the lead singer of Brazilian pop star Sérgio Mendes' group Brasil '66.  She's also known as record company executive and trumpeter Herb Alpert's wife.  But she's also made a number of solo albums that gained a lot of respect from those who heard them.

Ms. Hall was discovered by Mendes, when he caught her performance of hers at a coffee house in her hometown of Chicago.  She was barely twenty years old at the time.  Mendes invited her to come to Los Angeles as part of the new group he was performing, Brasil '66.  She took him up on his offer, and within a few months, the new group released its first LP on A&M Reocrds, the label founded by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss.     

Brasil '66's music can best be described as mod parlor music with a bossa nova beat.  Their first hit was "Mas Que Nada" ("which means "more than nothing"), written by Jorge Nada.  Brasil '66 hit their stride with material penned by Mendes and/or Alan and Marilyn Bergman - 1969's "Pretty World," a Bergman translation of a song by Antonio Adolfo and Tibério Gaspar, and 1968's "Look Around," which the Bergmans wrote with Mendes, are two examples - but Brasil '66 also scored with hit cover versions of songs from Cole Porter and Simon and Garfunkel.  They also did numerous Beatles covers; "The Fool On the Hill" was a big hit for Brasil '66 in early 1968, though it omitted crucial final verse that explains the song's meaning.  And Lani Hall was the dominant voice on all of these records.

Lani Hall and Sérgio  Mendes parted ways in the seventies - his Brasil '77 records featured female vocalists who sort of sounded like Ms. Hall but not quite the same - as Ms. Hall embarked on a solo career, marrying Herb Alpert in 1973.  Her first solo album, 1972's Sun Down Lady, did not disappoint, as Ms. Hall brought her jazzy touch to covers of songs from Lesley Duncan, Elton John, and Don McLean (she covered "Vincent").  She followed that up in 1975 with Hello It's Me, featuring a Todd Rundgren cover for the title track and also covers of Joni Mitchell and Carole King songs."  It also features "Sweet Jams and Jellies," a song Ms. Hall wrote herself.  Subsequent albums, including 1976's Sweet Bird and 1979's Double or Nothing, continued this pattern.

She's made a few albums with her husband, and in 1983 she recorded the title song for the unofficial James Bond movie Never Say Never Again . . . coincidentally, at the same time Sérgio Mendes had a Top Ten Hit - "Never Gonna Let You Go," written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil - with two vocalists (Joe Pizzulo and Lisa Miller, for the record) performing it as a duet.  She reunited with Mendes by singing on "Dreamer" (with Herb Alpert on trumpet) his 2008 album Encanto, which top the Billboard jazz album chart.

Lani Hall and Herb Alpert formed their own band in 2007, and they have performed and toured regularly since.  In 2012 she also published a book, "Emotional Memoirs & Short Stories," a collection of her fictional and non-fictional stories about women coping with life. And at age 73, Lani Hall is still going strong.

Fun fact: Lani Hall recorded numerous Spanish-language albums in the 1980s. "Corazón Encadenado," a song she recorded with Camilo Sesto, earned her a Grammy in 1984, and her 1985 album Es Fácil Amar, produced by Gibraltarian singer-songwriter Albert Hammond, won her a Grammy for Best Latin Pop Performance.  (The title track is in fact a translation of Leo Sayer's 1977 song "Easy To Love," written by Hammond and Sayer.)  She even sang a duet with José Feliciano.  Here's the kicker: She doesn't speak Spanish.  She just sings the words. :-D

The Beauty of Song, Part Six: Grace Garland

Grace Garland is a jazz and pop singer who writes her own songs and has been active in music for over a decade.

She's concentrated more on live performances than recording, playing many venues throughout the country.  Her two albums are Lovers Never Lie (In Bed) from 2005 and Lady G! from 2016.  Her 2016 single "I'll Cry Later" won her the silver medal for Female Jazz Vocals at the Global Music Awards.

Grace Garland has also been an actress, appearing  as Vera Vanderbilt on the ABC soap opera "All My Children." in the early 1980s and playing Q's mother in the 1992 movie Juice.  She combined her singing and acting talents as an original cast member in the off-Broadway hit musical The Last Session, about a singer-songwriter who decides to kill himself before dying of AIDS and making one last record before ending it all.  Ms. Garland played Diva, and she appears on the on the musical's original-cast album.  

The Beauty of Song, Part Six: Elizabeth Fraser

Elizabeth Fraser was the lead singer for the Scottish alternative-rock band Cocteau Twins.  Not too many Americans have heard of her because Cocteau Twins - no definite article -  were at their peak in the 1980s, which was not a good time for Scottish bands and alternative rockers in MTV-crazed America.

The band gained notoriety in the U.K. with early albums such as 1982's Garlands and 1984's Treasure, and Ms. Fraser was heralded in the British rock press for her operatic voice.  Cocteau Twins' 1988 album Blue Bell Knoll was their first wide release in the United States, and they soon gained a cult following in the New World. Heaven or Las Vegas, from 1990, was Cocteau Twins' most successful album in the U.S., selling 235,000 copies here as of 1996.  And I'm sure it's sold even more copies since.  

Cocteau Twins broke up in the mid-nineties and have had occasional reunions since.  Ms. Fraser has since done a smattering of solo work but has concentrated largely on guest appearances on other people's records.  Among the artists she's made such appearances with are Peter Gabriel and Echo and the Bunnymen's Ian McCulloch.    

The Beauty of Song, Part Six: Belinda Carlisle

You remember the Go-Go's, don't you?  Well, if you don't, you should.  A breath of fresh air in the musically depressing 1980s, the Go-Go's were an all-female rock band from Los Angeles that played their own instruments and wrote their own songs.  They were, in a phrase, the female Beatles.

So it's ironic that, when they broke up in 1985, lead singer Belinda Carlisle - the one member pf the group who did not play an instrument and a member with a paltry few composer credits for their songs - would have the biggest solo career.       

As a member of the Go-Go's, Belinda Carlisle enjoyed hit singles such as "We Got the Beat," "Our Lips Are Sealed," and "Vacation," songs that were as much inspired by songs from old-time "girl groups" such as the Shirelles and the Shangri-Las as by songs from Lennon and McCartney.  They opened doors for women in rock who wanted to play and write as well as song, though, in the MTV age, those doors would soon be slammed shut by a new generation of insubstantial, video-friendly pop divas who didn't have much aptitude for playing or writing . . . or singing.

Belinda Carlisle, however, persevered.  She embarked on a solo career that got her some solid power-pop hits like "Mad About You" from 1986 and, from her 1988 Heaven On Earth album, "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" and "Circle In the Sand," both written by Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley. The former song got ruined in an annoying insurance commercial; the latter is probably Belinda Carlisle's best solo single ever.

She had fewer hits in the nineties and beyond, but she did take part in a couple of Go-Go's reunions and even tried her hand at musical theater, performing in a production of Hairspray in England in late 2009.  She's still musically active, though, living in Thailand and having released an album of world music, Wilder Shores, in 2017 as a result of her interest in Eastern mysticism and in yoga.  (George Harrison would have been proud.)

Whatever she does, Belinda Carlisle will always find a way to go forward.

Fun fact:  She's married to political activist and film producer Morgan Mason, son of the late British actor James Mason.  Their son is named James Duke Mason.

The Beauty of Song, Part Six: Karla Bonoff

Karla Bonoff is the great lost talent of seventies Los Angeles rock.

She put her first solo record out in 1977, when the commercial peak of laid-back southern California bands and solo artists coincided with the rise of punk rock and the growing attention toward disco.  Anyone who hadn't made it big in LA rock by then was not going to get very far, because albums like the Eagles' Hotel California and Jackson Browne's Running On Empty were as big as the genre was going to get at a time when the punks declared war on mainstream rock and roll and the Bee Gees were about to have their biggest success ever with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album.

As a result, Karla Bonoff never sold a lot of records.  But she still managed to stand out for a time as one of southern California's most accomplished songwriters and performers.   

Her self-tiled first album featured there outstanding songs, the piercing, heartbreaking "Someone To Lay Down Beside Me," the country-tinged "Home," and a lighthearted, left-handed tribute to romance, "Isn't It Always Love."  Ms. Bonoff soon realized she was more successful at writing songs than singing them, as Linda Ronstadt famously recorded "Someone To Lay Down Beside Me" (plus two other tracks from Karla Bonoff, "If He's Ever Near" and "Lose Again") on her own Hasten Down the Wind album, while Bonnie Raitt covered "Home."  But despite backing from LA pros such as Andrew Gold, bassist Lee Sklar, drummer Russ Kunkel, and J.D. Souther, the Eagles' Glenn Frey and Linda Ronstadt herself on backing vocals, Ms. Bonoff's own album did not better than number 52 on the Billboard album chart.

Ms. Bonoff's followup albums, Restless Nights from 1979 and Wild Heart of the Young from 1982, weren't much more successful than her debut, though she gained an honorable reputation for personal, plaintive ballads. She hasn't recorded a solo album since her fourth effort, 1988's New World, only putting out solo material for the odd movie soundtrack once in awhile, but in the mid-nineties she reunited with her old folk-rock group Bryndle, and they put out two new albums.  These days, Ms. Bonoff still performs regularly in the United States and elsewhere. 

Had Karla Bonoff released her first solo album a few years earlier than she did, more people might know who she is and appreciate her music.  But she's still a bona fide member of what rock critics called the Avocado Mafia, the casual association of seventies folk-rock and country-rock singers and songwriters in southern California that began with Crosby, Stills and Nash and later included the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt and J.D. Souther, and she's an unsung heroine of the LA sound's glory days. 

Just for the record (no pun intended), I prefer Karla Bonoff's own recording of "Someone To Lay Down Beside Me" to Linda Ronstadt's cover.  

The Beauty of Song, Part Six: Lauren Alaina

Lauren Alaina became a country-and-western star through performing on "American Idol," following the trail that Carrie Underwood, an earlier honoree on this blog, blazed for country singers who wouldn't have become famous otherwise.

Ms. Alaina competed in the talent show's tenth season in 2011 and made it to the final round, even getting to duet with Carrie Underwood herself on Ms. Underwood's song "Before He Cheats."  She was only the runner-up on the show's 2011 iteration, but that didn't matter.

Wildflower, her debut album, came out later that year, in October.  She was only seventeen.  It reached number two on the Billboard country chart, producing hits like "Like My Mother Does" and "Georgia Peaches," the latter title being a term of endearment for attractive young women from Ms. Alaina's home state of Georgia.

It took her more than five years to record a follow-up LP, though she did put out an eponymously titled extended player that featured songs such as the flirtatious "Next Boyfriend" and a song about being true to oneself, "The Road Less Traveled."  Both songs appeared on her second album, which took its name from the latter song.  These two songs on the The Road Less Traveled album, released in January 2017, were also put out as singles.  

Lauren Alaina is just getting started, so it;s likely that she'll be as big a star as Carrie Underwood, if she isn't already.

(No, she's not Italian or Hispanic - she only goes by her first two Christian names professionally.  Her full name is Lauren Alaina Kristine Suddeth.)

New Series: The Beauty of Song, Part Six!

As I said yesterday, April 2019 marks my next series of beautiful women in music - my sixth so far - and I have a few recognizable names, and also a few that are less recognizable.  Some of them are women I hadn't even heard of until recently, so putting this series together - I type out my blog posts well in advance - was something of a learning experience for me! 

I try to be as diverse as possible in presenting women from as many different musical genres as possible, so I hope this series does not disappoint.  Back tomorrow with the first subject.

Before I do that, though, I would like to report with great pleasure that the GoFundMe campaign started to raise money for Spanish model Nastasia Urbano to get her out of homelessness, which I talked about here back in February, finally reached its goal of raising six thousand euros this past Saturday (March 30).  Thanks to everyone reading this who donated. :-)