I LOVE Elvis Costello's singing on 'Painted From Memory'. It's like he's
singing those songs like Dionne would have sung them. Her voice is too shot
these days to do those songs any justice, anyway. Like Joni, she's destroyed
her instrument with cigarettes. I'll take a strained and/or a bum note sung
with passion over a technically perfect, yet soulless note any day. I think
Elvis' strain give the songs tension. But that's my layman's opinion, but I
had to voice it, all due respect, Fred.
I have two Quad albums by Joni. "Court and Spark" and "Hissing..." Yes,
Phil, sometimes they used different takes or mixes for Quad albums. You
should hear "Raised on Robbery" on the quad disc. They wiped out most of the
backup vocals that gave it so much character! You would've thought they would
have played-up the use of the vocals by placing them more towards the back
speakers or something, but, no.... they just wiped them out! Most bizarre.
And like the Gold CD of 'C&S', they break up the seque between "People's
Parties" and "The Same Situation".
For any hard core collector, if there are any Quad discs available by a
favourite artist, ya gotta get it. They were notorious for using different
mixes or takes.
-denknee
