Search - Timi Yuro :: Great

Please check the song titles

M. J. Rossiter | UK | 04/30/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This cd has been released under other titles, so please check the songs before you purchase.

I am a big fan, but I feel there are far too many releases all containing the same songs, plus some of her latest material has been put out with an old picture of Timi on the cover.

I cannot understand why there are so many "best of" cds. I am sure if Timi was still with us she wouldn't have liked people to have been misled. Sometimes "Greatest Hits" doesn't mean it is the artist's greatest hits, but the songs themselves.

Personally, I think Timi is a marvellous artist in her own right, and didn't need to record an album of other peoples sixties hits, including "All alone am I", which was a hit for Brenda Lee. Being as they both sang the same type of material and at times sounded a bit alike, it is hard not to compare the versions by both. It's a shame Timi didn't get to record that song first in the sixties, as it would have been a smash hit then. Unfortunately Timi never had another smash hit like "Hurt", and to a lot of people she was regarded as a one hit wonder, although she had some minor hits after that.

Brenda Lee had the right people behind her, and Timi didn't. She wasn't allowed to record what she wanted to, and Liberty really had no idea what to do with her as they were geared up purely for the pop market at the time, pushing people like Bobby Vee etc. Timi wasn't a "pop" singer, and Liberty is guilty of wasting her and in my opinion, ruined her career. Had she been signed to Stax or Atlantic, she would have really been a huge star, especially being a white woman who could knock the socks off the black female soul singers those labels had signed to them. Also she would have been singing the type of material that she loved. I would loved to have heard her do stuff like"I ain't never loved a man the way that I loved you", "Respect" "Chain of fools" etc instead of some of the "poppy" songs she did for Liberty. I am not saying she didn't do those songs well, because she did. To me, her version of "Fever" is better than Peggy Lees, and what a shame it is faded out so soon.

Timi could sing anything and make it sound terrific. Her country songs were superb, along with her bluesy, more soulful material. She could sing with an orchestra, or just a very small band, and she was always great.

Perhaps it's just me not really liking her do an album of cover versions like this one, and I wish she hadn't rerecorded her old songs. As good as they are, they aren't the same as when she first did them.

Now you can all tell me I am talking rubbish, but it's just the way I feel.

I just get so annoyed that such a wonderful singer was wasted

Mike Rossiter UK"