Jennifer Warnes ‎– Famous Blue Raincoat: The Songs Of Leonard Cohen LP 1986

Sold Date: July 6, 2017
Start Date: June 29, 2017
Final Price: $65.00 (USD)
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 was familiar with  from a tour of duty as one of his backup singers in the early '70s, but this collection of 's songs must have shocked her AM radio fans who knew her from her '70s country-pop hits and her movie themes, if they were even able to connect the woman who sang "It's the right time of the night for makin' love" with the one who declared "First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin" over stinging guitar work by  on the opening track here. As that pairing suggests,  wisely took a tougher, more contemporary approach to the arrangements than such past  interpreters as  used to. Where other singers tended to geld 's often disturbingly revealing poetry, , working with the composer himself and introducing a couple of great new songs ("First We Take Manhattan" and "Song of Bernadette," which she co-wrote), matched his own versions. The high point may have been the - duet on "Joan of Arc," but the album was consistently impressive. And it went a long way toward reestablishing , whose reputation was in a minor eclipse in the mid-'80s. A year later, with the way paved for him, he released his brilliant comeback album . For , the album meant her first taste of real critical success: suddenly a singer who had seemed like a second-rate now appeared to be a first-class interpretive artist.