Music Reissues Weekly: Blossom Dearie - Discover Who I Am

Had Blossom Dearie overtly embraced pop, her vocal style could be characterised as along the lines of Priscilla Paris, Jane Birkin or Saint Etienne’s Sarah Cracknell – intimate, a little breathy, oxygenated. However, jazz was her bag and June Christy, Peggy Lee and Norway’s Karin Krog are the closest reference points.

After listening to the live material collected on the six-CD box set Discover Who I Am: The Fontana Years London 1966-70 another, incongruous, marker comes to mind. When she speaks between songs – and sometimes while singing – her inflection is similar to that of the New York Dolls’ David Johansen. He is from New York and she grew up in the city’s orbit, in the Catskills. She is less brassy, smoother than him but there’s a connection. Perhaps it’s an accent thing?

However, Blossom Dearie (1924–2009) was not just about her voice (or her oft-commented on name). Her father was Scottish, her mother Norwegian. She was a classically trained pianist and, in time, a composer too. In the 1940s, she sang with Woody Herman’s Blue Flames and Alvino Rey’s Blue Reys She was first heard on record in 1948. In 1949, she was on a Stan Getz and Al Haig single. Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan and Charlie Parker were in her immediate circle. In 1952, she played piano on the Annie Ross LP Singin’ and Swingin’. Next, she was in Paris, where she hooked up with Michel Legrand and was in the Blue Stars with him. They evolved and, without her, became The Swingle Singers. French and US Blossom Dearie LPs followed.

As per its title, Discover Who I Am tracks Blossom Dearie’s multi-year brush with Swinging Sixties-era Britain. Her long-time friend Annie Ross had opened the Annie’s Room club in London in 1965, and Dearie first played there that March. Manchester’s Club 43 and venues across the UK beckoned. As did television’s cameras. She was obviously taken with and taken in by the music scene. She composed a song titled “Sweet Georgie Fame,” first issued in 1966. A few years on, Fame would later record his own “Blossom.” There were many such fans: Kylie Minogue wanted to collaborate with Dearie. When they met, Minogue gave her a CD of Dearie’s songs she had already recorded.

All this is detailed in the smart book accompanying Discover Who I Am. Dearie is quoted saying “London was swinging when I arrived.” She was picked up by the Fontana label and four albums resulted: Blossom Time At Ronnie Scott’s (1966 – recorded live); Sweet Blossom Dearie (1967 – also live, taped at Ronnie Scott’s in July 1966); Soon It’s Gonna Rain (1967 – studio, recorded 21–23 August 1967); That’s Just The Way I Want To Be (1970 – studio: what’s here is a new stereo mix made from the original four-track master). These and contemporary non-album single tracks form the box set’s basis. There are also two discs of previously unheard studio sessions and alternate versions from the period (27 tracks in total), just over half of which relate to That’s Just The Way I Want To Be. The box set’s title is taken from “Discover Who I am,” a 1968 non-album Fontana B-side.

Taken as a whole, it’s obvious she wasn’t fussed with genre constraints. There are versions of “Mad About the Boy,” “On Broadway,” “One Note Samba,” “Trains and Boats and Planes” and “Alfie” – and of André Previn's “You're Gonna Hear From Me,” from Inside Daisy Clover. On Soon It’s Gonna Rain, her own “I Was Looking For You” is reflective: more so than the album’s 11 other tracks, all cover versions.

Of the four UK albums the last, 1970’s pointedly titled That's Just The Way I Want To Be, is the stand-out. Even though it’s a little too heavy with the vocal reverb and has arrangements edging towards over-lush and intrusive, it pushes further into who Blossom Dearie was than what preceded it during the UK spell. Eight of its 12 tracks are self-penned. “Sweet Georgie Fame” is included (it was first heard on 1966’s live set Sweet Blossom Dearie). There are also versions of “Both Sides Now,” Charles Aznavour’s “Yesterday When I Was Young” and a setting of Emily Dickinson’s “Will There Really be a Morning.” “Hey John” is for John Lennon, who she had seen on The David Frost Show in August 1968 singing in a voice styled after hers. Flattered, she wrote him a song. “I Know the Moon” is a co-write with Dusty Springfield’s close friend Norma Tanega. Allied with this there is also an evocative, intriguing song titled “Dusty Springfield.”

"Dusty Springfield, that’s a pretty name, it even sounds like a game,” she sings. “London flowers fair, blooming in her hair…feathers float from her dance.” The song’s final words are “Pretty as a pearl, what a pretty girl.”

After this, back to America and the formation of her own label, Daffodil Records. Discover Who I Am: The Fontana Years London 1966-70 is an engrossing snapshot. The music is great. The song choices are marvellous. The live performances charm. Dearie’s on-stage between-song chat is frequently – very knowingly – hilarious. Her own songs are wonderful. Most of all though, this box set generates a need to dig further into the world of this multi-facted musical auteur – to further discover who she was.

• Next week: The Statik Records Years – box set of Adrian Borland's post-punk band The Sound
  
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