Thursday, 7 September 2017

A Pub, A Pint And A Song: Kim Cordell - Parlophone 1966

Q magazine once memorably referred to T'Pau's Carol Decker as a 'singing barmaid'. It wasn't meant as a compliment. Which is just as well because Ms Decker didn't take it as one. In fact, she took issue enough to write in and complain. It's not hard to see why - as an insult it works on too many levels to list, yet as a cutting casual observation it's as sharp as it's accurate and, like all the best insults, it contains enough of a grain of recognisable truth to sting its recipient. 
 
It's a comment that came to mind when I picked this up; if anyone deserves the title of 'singing barmaid' then surely it's Ms Cordell. On the evidence of that cover shot she'd have little ground for complaint anyway, though in fact it wouldn't be strictly accurate - Cordell is a pub singer rather than barmaid. Lest anyone be in any doubt about this, I've discovered she's also released an album called 'I Sing In A Pub', which what it lacks in imagination it makes up for in accuracy. You know exactly where you are with Kim Cordell.
 
In spite of all that, I have to own up to the fact that I'd never heard of Cordell before I bought this and that front cover aside, it was the back cover note that really caught my attention. "There are a number of ladies who, because of their voices, talent, personality, style, versatility and comic ability, or a combination of some or all of these qualities, rate very high on my list of favourite entertainers. They include Gracie Fields, Marlene Dietrich, Beatrice Lillie, Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Shirley Booth, Pearl Bailey, Zizi Jeanmarie, Barbra Streisand, Libby Morris and Shirley Bassey. I welcome Kim Cordell to their ranks". Well blimey, high praise indeed; the only people missing from that line-up are Maria Callas and Dame Nellie Melba. The author of that puff piece isn't recorded on the cover (and for all I know it could have been Cordell herself), but whoever it was they've given Cordell a lot to live up to and set a very high bar for my expectations. Sadly, and perhaps somewhat predictably, those expectations not met.
 
Ostensibly recorded 'live' in a pub (there's a constant drunken Greek chorus babbling away in the background), 'A Pub, A Pint And A Song' is another medley based affair with Cordell singing the guts out of some three dozen songs. She's certainly game enough; Cordell is a performer in in the vein of a traditional British music hall turn who needed nothing more than a piano and a song to get a packed crowd singing along (though I guess the alcohol helped) and her boom of a voice would project to the back of the busiest pub and demand attention. Unfortunately, it's also a voice that switches eras, genres and continents on a sixpence so as to create and destroy moods at random.
 
What I mean by that is one moment we're surfing a wave on 'California, Here I Come' before hitting the brakes for 'By The Light Of The Silvery Moon' then jumping back to the WW1 era with 'How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm?', then on to Dixieland jazz ('Margie'), ragtime ('Oh, You Beautiful Doll') then back to English music hall ('Give My Regards To Leicester Square'). And so it goes, on and on in the same breathless, breakneck way for song after song over the course of two sides with Cordell adopting either cod American and overly affected cockney accents throughout (with the occasional Irish accent where the song requires it). I don't mind a bit of variety, but in reaching out to every possible demographic who might be in the pub with her, Cordell makes my head spin with her constant change of pace, mood and accent in each of the song fragments she tackles. After a while it loses it's novelty and just gets plain annoying.
 
If you know every single tune on offer then fine I guess, but for those (like me) who don't, then there's nothing more irritating when you're all geed up for a sing song to hear a tune you recognise enough to bellow along to only to have the singer perform a sudden handbrake turn into something you don't just as you're getting going. It's like premature ejaculation in reverse and just as frustrating. That's not Kim's fault per se, and fair play to her she never sounds like she's having anything less than a blast, but that's small consolation when listening to a record that's geared up for audience participation yet falls as flat as week old pop. I would normally say 'I guess you had to be there', and maybe you did. Maybe a few of those titular pints would have helped too, but listening to 'A Pub, A Pint And A Song' at home neither recreates the live experience nor makes me wish I was there in the pub with her. One for Kim's fan club I think.

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