Our good friend Tony Andrews, a dedicated music lover, a deeply knowledgeable but completely unpretentious authority on certain types of Jazz, both live and recorded and an all-round decent bloke wrote this. Tony, we all thank you for this.
Being as I am a devotee of real music one issue seems to get to me more than ever. This is the correlations of where talent and fame actually meet. In my youth I am sure the two had a distinct connection and first you had talent and fame followed.
In this day and age all it takes is hype and a quick appearance on The X Factor and you can skip the talent requirements all together.
This minor outburst was inspired by taking a listen to a fantastic CD released some while back by the truly sensational Christine Collister who is by no means unknown but is hardly famous by today standards. Christine has been around sometime making a succession of wonderful CD’s as a solo artist and with other singer musicians including Clive Gregson.
“Love” as the CD is titled started off as a project inspired by Roy Gandy of Rega Hi-Fi and as they are famous for there Turntables it was released only on vinyl. Fortunately for the likes of me that have a CD player to rival or even better vinyl this was eventually released on CD.
Christine has chosen to devote the whole project to covers of songs which may seem to lack originality but it has the completely opposite effect and to me the songs are totally refreshed by her arrangements. I always felt “The man with a child in his eyes” by Kate Bush was a marvellous song just waiting for a better singer to do it justice and Christine Collister has done just that. “The moon is a harsh mistress” is a song sung quite widely in the wonderful world of Jazz and many singers including Radka Toneff and Shirley Horne has done great versions.
Once again Christine has given it a new almost but not quite folksy feel to it and breathed new life it to it. The final proof of Christine’s amazing talent is with “Who knows where the time goes” by one of my favourite and sadly departed singers Sandy Denny. I did not think it possible to equal the original version but this has been achieved on this wonderful and inspired CD by Christine Collister.
I hate to make comparisons but if you love the tonal qualities of Alison Moyet but you want to hear a singer with even more expression and vocal range and a personality all of her own then buy this on CD or Vinyl. You can then just sit back and listen to a masterpiece of music and recording engineering. Better still go to one of her live concerts and I am sure you can buy “Love” from the lady herself in person.
