Good sample of Bonnie's RCA music
Peter Durward Harris | Leicester England | 04/27/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Between 1976 and 1981, Bonnie recorded four albums for RCA plus a few other tracks including World is full of married men, the only track here that didn't originally appear on one of those four albums.
Bonnie's debut album, World starts tonight, yielded the top ten UK hit Lost in France and the UK top thirty hit More than a lover. After that, Bonnie had an operation that changed her singing voice forever. The follow-up album featured It's a heartache, which was Bonnie's biggest hit of the seventies, making the top five in both Britain and America, where it also made the top ten in the country charts. This was unexpected but, on reflection, it is clear that there is a country flavor to some of Bonnie's music in those early years.
Bonnie's third album, Diamond cut, is actually my favorite original album of Bonnie's but may now be the hardest to locate. It didn't feature any major hits, though Louisiana rain (a magical cover of a Tom Petty song) was released as a UK single and received plenty of airplay in the UK at the time. My guns are loaded, another song with a country flavor, became a minor American country hit. Bonnie's last RCA album, Goodbye to the island, featured no hits that I know of but is another great album.
Bonnie completed her time at RCA with The world is full of married men, which became a minor UK hit. It was very different from her previous recordings and I didn't like it at the time but I appreciate it better now. Bonnie left RCA for Columbia where she had further hits including Total eclipse of the heart and Holding out for a hero, but those are beyond the scope of this compilation.
This collection features all the RCA tracks I've already mentioned, together with some other great original songs and fine covers of You make me feel like a natural woman, Sometimes when we touch, Living for the city, Piece of my heart and Whiter shade of pale.
There have been many compilations of Bonnie's RCA music, while some of her RCA tracks have appeared on multi-label compilations. As a sampler focusing entirely on this period of Bonnie's career, this is brilliant."
