Search - Rebecca Luker, Cole Porter :: Anything Goes: Rebecca Luker Sings Cole Porter

Getting at the heart of Porter's music

Jim Hinde | Evanston, IL USA | 01/16/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"After listening to this album many times over the past couple of years, I find it impossible to identify a single track that I can call my favorite, but the one that, for me at least, most clearly demonstrates Rebecca Luker's ability to find something wonderful in a song and give it to her audience is "Don't Fence Me In". I'd always thought of this song as a mildly comic novelty number that regarded its subject, Wildcat Kelly and his love of wide-open spaces, with a strong dose of irony and condescension. That is certainly how Ellas Fitzgerald presented it in her recording, where the emotional distance from the subject inherent in her swing delivery is reinforced by the inclusion of a second verse, omitted in Luker's recording, in which Wildcat's reluctance to be fenced in is expressed, not to the sheriff who is taking him to jail, but to the sweetheart who wants him to marry her. Luker's version of the song appears at the start to be in that same vein, when she seems to parody a Western accent in the opening bars: "Wildcat Kelly, lookin' mahty pale..." The Western accent remains in the rest of the song, but, as with the Scottish accent Luker sang with in her cast recording of Brigadoon, all hints of irony disappear as Luker transforms the song into a deeply felt and utterly sincere hymn to the beauty of the Western landscape. The Western persona, which in other performances serves to insulate us from the feeling of the song, does just the opposite here, and so effectively does it do this that when Luker begins to yodel toward the end of the song, instead of groaning and rolling our eyes we are so completely convinced by her that we find ourselves blinking back tears. It's a wonderful thing that Rebecca Luker has done with this song, and she does the same thing throughout the album, consistently finding the strong emotional core beneath the clever and sophisticated surface of Cole Porter's music."

I listen to this night and day!

Lauren Halvorsen | Connecticut United States | 06/24/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Rebecca Luker has shone onstage ever since her Broadway debut as Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. Since then, she has gone on to play Maria in The Sound of Music and is currently starring as Marian Paroo in The Music Man. She is famous for her clear, beautiful soprano, and her vocal talent is fully exhibited on this recording. Rebecca shines on "After You, Who?", "Night and Day", "Ridin' High", "Everytime We Say Goodbye", and the title track. Backed by creative orchestral arrangements on such classic tunes as "You Do Something To Me" and with the help of such talent as Emily Loesser, Sally Mayes, and Brett Barret. Rebecca has chosen a fine arrayment of songs to flatter her beautiful voice. This CD is recommended to Luker, Porter, and jazz fans alike, but also those with an appreciation for outstanding vocal talent."

Rebecca Luker - Anything Goes

Michael Schiro | Denham Springs, Louisiana United States | 05/06/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For those who enjoy real singing, there is no better example of how it is supposed to be done than Rebecca Luker's collection of Cole Porter songs, Anything Goes. She is, without question, one of the best singers in the world today, and this CD is evidence of that."