Al compás del mundo - programa #146, 9-19-24, women’s voices

Run list Al compás del mundo - programa #146, 9-19-24, women’s voices

01 Bessie Smith - Blue Spirit Blues (USA)

02 Alberta Adams – Remember (USA)

03 Abbey Lincoln - Straight Ahead (USA)

04 Sarah Vaughan – Interlude (USA)

05 Nina Simone - Four Women (USA)

06 Fontella Bass - Since I Fell for You (USA)

07 Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings - How Long Do I Have to Wait for You (USA)

08 Laura Nyro & LaBelle - Gonna Take a Miracle (USA)

09 Rhiannon Giddens - Ten Thousand Voices (USA)

10 Nico - Winter Song (Germany)

11 P.J. Harvey - The Last Living Rose (England)

12 Alabama Shakes - I Ain't the Same (USA)

13 Janis Joplin – Summertime (USA)

14 Mother Earth - It Won't Be Long (USA)

15 La Santa Cecilia - La Morena (USA-Mexico)

16 Cassandra Wilson - VooDoo Reprise (USA)

These babes have lungs. Whether you accept “babes” as an appropriate label for the crooners, belters, songsters, nightingales, chanteuses, warblers, troubadours and serenaders in today’s program, you’ll have to admit this is talent above and beyond. For me, a true babe can signify someone atop the food chain. Every name here is someone who has absolutely killed it – if not throughout their entire career, then certainly on choice works of musical art that, fortunately, will be with us forever. Reaching from the 1930’s Bessie Smith [Top of page] to the present day’s Marisol Hernández of La Santa Cecilia [above] there’s something for every taste, as long as you eschew mediocrity. You get a gem of classic jazz – Sarah Vaughan with “Interlude”; Nina Simone’s plaintive “reading” of African-American history; Fontella Bass and Sharon Jones showing just how R&B came to dominate the charts; Rhiannon Giddens and Nico mixing sultry and icy in a minor key sort of way; Janis Joplin lays it bare and Tracy Nelson of Mother Earth takes up the baton. And there’s more, but you get the picture. I’d suggest a glass of bourbon, straight up, to while away the hour as you listen in and get richer for it.

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