Track List
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Track 1: Lovers After All 4:35:73 Track 2: El Cajon 4:2:35 Track 3: Quietly There 5:12:62 Track 4: Sure as You're Born 3:10:23 Track 5: The Shining Sea 4:50:0 Track 6: The Shadow of Your Smile 3:41:32 Track 7: Close Enough for Love 3:46:10 Track 8: Cinnamon and Clove 3:54:33 Track 9: Unless It's You 3:36:42 Track 10: Suicide Is Painless 3:44:3 Track 11: You Are There 4:37:22 Track 12: A Time for Love 3:48:48 Track 13: Emily 4:19:25 Track 14: Don't Look Back 2:21:72 Track 15: Take Me Home 4:50:0
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Liner Notes [Notice that (b) and (c) are reprints from earlier albums.]
(a) I'm so glad to hove been able to add more songs of Johnny Mandel to our first album on Discovery for compact disc I admire his special talents. He has given us beautiful music that will last forever and singers like myself are so grateful he has graced us with such artistry. The lyric talents of Morgan Ames [Quietly There), Dave Frishberg (El Cajon) and Richard Rodney Bennett (Lovers After All) are some of the added songs on which Bob Florence, Mike Stephens and Tom Warrington's wonderful backing and the warmth and feeling of Carmen Fanzone's flugelhorn are truly attributes.
Thanks Johnny for gifting us all with the magnificent music of Mandel .
-Sue Raney
July 1987
(b) Bob Florence has done some wonderful arrangements using several synthesizers in such a warm, innovative way that they don't even sound like synthesizers, and he has augmented them with drums, bass, and his own unique and lovely talent on the piano As for Ms. Raney — well, she is a marvel. Her voice has phenomenal range and pitch She has amazing breath control, crystal clear diction and a way with words that makes me writhe with envy. She has passion. She is an actress. She gives the lyrics textures. You hear and feel and see and understand. She can be sully and smokey in tone as in Take Me Home or suddenly turn on vocal calisthenics as she does in Sure As You're Born. The end result is that it all sounds comfortabIe and so easy.
—Julie Andrews
(c) Anyone with impeccable taste in music, such as ourselves, will see immediately that this is a great collaboration Sue Raney singing vintage Johnny Mandel songs, accompanied by Bob Florence, Bob Magnusson and Jim Plank
Miss Raney doesn't sell us. It sounds like she just showed up and the songs fell out. Such seeming effortlessness like Fred and Ginger sliding out of their chairs and a whole song and dance just occurs.
Sue's voice has never sounded sweeter or sunnier. She's also dead in tune in passages so tricky they'll make other singers squint. It all sounds so simple. She sips the lyrics for the fine wine they often are.
Pianist Bob Florence is a master in this delicate genre. Many think of him first as the guy whose big band keeps getting nominated for a Grammy. But his scaled down settings for Miss Raney are pure Tiffany
Mandel makes a lyricist work hard. He's a sharp judge, and you want to please him. Peggy Lee never wrote a more touching lyric than The Shining Sea. Paul Francis Webster's The Shadow of Your Smile is so beautiful that you want to bathe in it. In Close Enough For Love, Paul Williams says, "You and I have life to hold, the greatest story never told, not perfect yet, close enough for love." Close to perfectly said both in and out of the film Agatha Alan and Marilyn Bergman's Cinnamon and Clove sits easily in its bright melody. Unless It's You is made up entirely of four note phrases each ending with a long note .I wrote open rhymes for each one, for the singer's sake. The music required that kind of effort And Sue made me glad.
The lyric to Suicide is Painless from Mash was written by Mike Altman, the then fourteen year-old son of director Bob Altman Since no other lyricist on this album was ever fourteen, young Altman was stomping in high cotton. You'll notice You Are There was written by Dave Frishberg, himself a superb composer, singer, pianist. Frishberg has a no-style style that is deeply touching, especially this time. A Time For Love is Paul Francis Webster again, liquid and languid. Emily is Johnny Mercer. A master speaks. Kaye Dunham wrote the comforting lyric to Don't Look Back
I love how Bob Florence sets up his piano solo over his Rhodes track on Cinnamon And Clove, and Sue's intro kills me too. A trainwreck would not have disturbed her concentration on You Are There, with a flawless solo from Florence. She takes a liberty on one note (I'll go) toward the end of The Shining Sea that makes the song her own. She duets beautifully with Bob Magnusson's mellow bass on Close Enough For Love. Jim Plank's drums and percussion feel as right as Raney. Since the album was recorded live in one day, we know that engineer Jim Mooney is world class at his job It was all thoughtfully produced by Albert Marx
-Morgan Ames.
Personnel
Bob Florence - piano
Bob Magnusson & Tom Warrington - bass
Jim Plank & Mike Stephans - drums & percussion
Carmen Fanzone - flugelhorn
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