Search - Petula Clark :: Don't Cry for Me Argentina: CBS Years 2

English language recordings from the CBS years

Peter Durward Harris | Leicester England | 05/18/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"With the French language recordings having already appeared on a double CD (Paris Orleans Paris), this compilation is inevitably sub-titled the CBS years volume 2, although this is only a single CD. Even allowing that some masters appear to have been lost, it is clear that Petula recorded mostly in French during her spell with CBS. Another curiosity is that the excellent liner notes included here refer back to the French compilation. The liner notes for that set are all in French so you have to be bilingual to understand both sets of liner notes, which small matter was clearly forgotten by the writer of this compilation's liner notes.



The first two tracks here were the A and B sides of a single (Don't cry for me Argentina b/w A carousel) that wasn't released in Britain (because Julie Covington had only vacated the number one spot a few months earlier with her original version of the song) or France (where Petula's French version of the song was released instead and became a huge hit there), but it was released in several other countries around the world. Petula's version of Don't cry for me Argentina has a different arrangement, which makes it distinctive but is not so dramatic as to alienate anybody.



The next twelve tracks originally made up the album Destiny, the only English language album that CBS released of Petula's music. Petula's song writing talent is in evidence as she wrote four of the songs (When you're gone, What am I doing here?, Songbird, You're my destiny) and co-wrote another (Put a little sunbeam in your life, adapted from a TV commercial jingle in which Petula promoted a particular car model). There have been several different songs titled Songbird of which the one by Fleetwood Mac (from Rumours) is the most famous, but the Songbird here is Petula's own. Outstanding covers of I'm not in love (10cc) and If you leave me now (Chicago), together with a fine Sandy Theoret song (Feel the love go round) are among the other highlights. Crystal Gayle fans may recognize the name of Sandy Theoret, she being the writer of When I dream.



The next two tracks made up another single (Life is just a dance with time b/w Don't stop the music) in which Petula wrote the B-side. Next come two Andrew Lloyd Webber songs (I could have given you more, Sheldon Bloom), neither of which were released at the time. The first of them eventually appeared on an Andrew Lloyd Webber compilation in 2001, but the second is making its public debut here as are the final two tracks. One of these (I couldn't live without you) is an original song while the other is an alternative arrangement of Put a little sunbeam in your life.



This long-overdue re-issue means that all of Petula's major English language recordings have now been released on CD at some time or other, although some are now out of print, so while some die-hard Petula fans can point to certain recordings that have yet to get a CD release, nobody can deny that Petula's fans have been extremely well served by the various record labels who have, between them, provided an abundance of CD's featuring her music."