One time the suits “desecrated” the original U.K. release and came up with something way better for the American market was when they turned The Cure‘s 1979 debut album, Three Imaginary Boys, into 1980’s Boys Don’t Cry.
Rock albums from the 1990s are getting re-released on vinyl at an epic pace but jazz LPs from the Clinton years are coming out at a much slower pace. One of my favorite vocal jazz albums that deserves to come out on vinyl is 1991’s You Gotta Pay The Band, which features Abbey Lincoln with a hand-picked group that includes pianist Hank Jones, bassist Charlie Haden, daughter Maxine Roach on viola, and Stan Getz as the featured soloist.
Abbey Lincoln came to fame in the 1950s as a singer of standards, was an early 1960s Black Power belter, and late ’60s Hollywood actress. Somewhere in between taking time out to raise a family and divorcing drummer Max Roach, Lincoln developed as a jazz singer-songwriter outside of the mainstream spotlight throughout the 1970s and ’80s. She was at her most popular, and at the height of her powers, during the 1990s with a major label behind her.
1991’s You Gotta Pay The Band was her second album for the reignited Verve label and showcases Abbey Lincoln as a master storyteller, songwriter, and an artist with a unique point of view. Hard-won wisdom and emotional insight light up such Abbey Lincoln originals as the title track, “Bird Alone,” and “You Made Me Funny.” But, Abbey’s reading of a lyric only deepened with the decades and she also scores with three distinguished, though less recorded, standards from the usual songwriting suspects. My favorite track on the album is her revival of the depression era stunner “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?”
Nick's Vinyl Picks 