Search - Barbara Cook :: Rainbow Round My Shoulder

Hallelujah, I Love Barbara So.

B. Olson | Brookline, MA, USA | 11/12/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am paraphrasing a song included on this CD, written by Ray Charles and sung by Barbara Cook. Also on this disc are many songs that I heard her sing at her Chicago Ravinia Concert, July 2008.



At 80, Cook is an ageless, national treasure who brings emotions and inner meanings to each song that she sings. Her phrasing, tempo and selections are SO incredible ... that old songs become NEW experiences with Barbara's insightful vision.



This is a great addition to her recorded discography ..so don't wait until next Christmas to bring joy to your world!"

A must have!

Roy Wayne Shiflet | Laurel, Md USA | 11/15/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Still sounding wonderful, after all these years. The booklet also contains some of the most beautiful photos of this beautiful lady. A great selection of songs"

What's all this about Barbara Cook?

Good Stuff | 01/14/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What's all this about Barbara Cook? Why is it that when you mention her name to seemingly well adjusted adult men and women they become all dewy-eyed and mushy-brained. Just exactly what is going on here?



Damned if I know, but count me in as one of those dewy-eyed and mushy-brained adults.



What is it? Is her voice really all that exceptional? Is her ability to convey a lyric really all that special? Is her physical presence, even on a recording, all that galvanizing? Well, frankly, yes.



But that doesn't even begin to tell the story. It seems to me that Barbara Cook is the distillation of everything good music has to offer. She is a unique talent among unique talents. While her performance of a song, whether it be one we have heard a thousand times, or one we are hearing for the first time, may not be the only way it can be performed, we can always rest assured that Miss Cook will offer it to us in as perfected a state as she is capable of. I doubt she has ever wrapped that silver instrument she possesses around some song merely because she needs another three minutes on an album or in a concert. She obviously has way too much love and respect for music to waste her time, and ours, like that.



And something else perhaps even more important, for those of us who have followed her throughout the years and decades: She never got bad. Oh sure, her voice has changed with the years. No surprise there. The surprise, if there is one, is that it has not changed in any way but for the better. As the voice has become ever so slightly less strong, as those famous top notes have become perhaps just the slightest bit more careful, it is all still a beautiful package, respectfully offered, lovingly accepted.



And the words. Those beautiful words. Those words Miss Cook obviously finds as beautiful and important as those beautiful notes.



Barbara Cook has embraced the passage of time with love rather than fear. It is as though she is telling us she has waited all her life to get to today. She has defined the art of popular singing in a way that gives us at least the glimmer of hope that in these crazy times of distrust, disillusionment and disdain, there are still those imponderables that allow us mere mortal humans to rise up.



Thank you Miss Cook. Job well done!"