Perla Batalla - Bird on the Wire/the Songs of Leonard Cohen
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Perla BatallaEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-08-16
Music Label: Mechuda Music
Soundtracks:
- If It Be Your Will
- Seems So Long ago Mancy
- Coming Back to You
- Dance me to the end of Love
- So Long Marianne
- Came so far for Beauty
- Ballad of the Absent Mare
- Famous Blue Raincoat
- Bird on the Wire
- Suzanne
Free Music Notes for Bird on the Wire/the Songs of Leonard Cohen
Free Music Review: New Intepretations of Old Songs
Hit: 5 Stars
Perla Batalla's CD should be better known. Her strong, slighty husky voice is a perfect vehicle to project the emotion and poetry of the melancholy songs of Leonard Cohen. Batalla doesn't slavishly copy the originals. Piano replaces acoustic guitar as the lead instrument on several songs; she fiddles with the tempo on others and adds male voices to complement her own. In many cases her interpretation is better than the original as sung by 'gloomy Gus' Cohen.
My favorite song on the CD is "Ballad of the Absent Mare" a new little known song which Batalla sings as a duet with David Hidalgo. It's a lovely, lilting cowboy waltz that has something of Marty Robbins and Freddy Fender in it along with a Tejano accordion.
What good songs they are! "Suzanne, Bird on the Wire," and others have been copied and sung by hosts of other singers. Cohen is one of the finest song-writers of the past half century. It's hard to imagine that anybody could sing his songs any better than Perla Batalla does on this CD.
Smallchief
Bird on the Wire/the Songs of Leonard Cohen Poster
Leonard Cohen?s gruff voice has kept many from properly appreciating the brilliance and utter romanticism of his songs. Perla Batalla here lovingly wraps her warm voice around 10 of them to glorious results. The best are the ones where she takes the most liberties: ?Famous Blue Raincoat? backed by a string quartet, a jazzy ?Seems So Long Ago, Nancy,? ?Ballad of the Absent Mare? as a duet with David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, ?Dance Me to the End of Love? as a duet with Bill Gable partially translated into Spanish, ?Suzanne? cleverly interpolating bits of Steven Foster?s ?O Susanna.? The sound is sumptuous. Engineer/mixer Leanne Unger is an excellent choice for the project as she has worked on many of Cohen?s own albums over the years. Her sympathy and love for Cohen?s songs, plus her familiarity with them, greatly enhances the album. The three cover shots of Perla Batalla and Leonard Cohen sharing warm moments speaks volumes both to Perla?s sincerity and love for Cohen?s songs and Cohen?s endorsement of Perla?s work. Beautifully conceived and executed, Bird on the Wire is a rewarding listening experience I find myself returning to frequently. It is every bit the equal of Jennifer Warnes? classic Cohen tribute album Famous Blue Raincoat. For those uninitiated to the glories of the songs of Leonard Cohen this is a wonderful introduction. For the rest of us it is simply heavenly. ? Michael TearsonFolk Music CDs
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