Search - Adelaide Hall :: Hall of Fame

Nostalgia songbird

Sasha | at sea...sailing somewhere | 12/01/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Delightful collection of Adelaide Hall's most famous recordings - she was one of the biggest pop stars in period between wars and completely forgotten today,which is strange as she introduced "I can't give you anything but love" and was vocalist on "Creole love call" from 1927. (first hit for Duke Ellington).

Maybe its because later blues and jazz enthusiasts turned to rougher and more authentic singers like Bessie Smith that pop singers like Hall went out of fashion,since she and Ethel Waters represented completely different kind of music - lighter,sweeter and definitely more commercial.Everything about her cheerful singing and style suggested urban night clubs and ballads (Lucille Hegamin and Alberta Hunter also come to mind) and this has really nothing much to do with blues - Hall's music was closer to cute,romantic Mildred Bailey than to rough and tough Bessie Smith.

Star of "Cotton Club",numerous night spots in Paris and London,contemporary of both Django Reinhardt and Josephine Baker and post-war Broadway is forgotten today and almost never mentioned,which is pity as she was really big deal in her time.True,lack of "gritt" makes this compilation old-fashioned and interesting only to nostalgia enthusiasts like me but but her cute chirping once was soundtrack to people's lifes and strange how time erases everything and makes things insifignicant - both Fats Waller and Duke Ellington are here on this CD together with Adelaide Hall and as for repertoire,well it's basically who is who of popular music (Cole Porter,George Gershwin,Irving Berlin and Hoagy Carmichael just to name a few) and these recordings are true sign of their times and standards sung the way they were done back than.

Many years later Cleo Laine recorded her own version of "Creole Love Call" (twice!) and in her way she continued tradition of black jazz lady in London,she often talks about Adelaide Hall with big affection.

Lovely compilation of old-fashioned pop that now goes into "nostalgia" file."