Album Notes

For some reactions to this recording, please visit www.CaroleeSings.com/CD.htm

I started singing at sixteen on WNYC radio in New York City. I sang in clubs in L.A. through the seventies eighties and early nineties. This year (2004), I've headlined at The Gardenia Room in Hollywood and at Lunaria, a well known jazz club in West Los Angeles, accompanied at both places by The Michael Orland Trio.

All the numbers on this CD were recorded in one session on February 23rd,2001, at Grandma's Warehouse in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles. Michael Orland was the musical director and pianist. We were accompanied by Ed Smith on drums, and Tim Christensen on acoustic bass, with David Hill's clarinet on a couple of numbers. It was important to me that we all record as though we were performing in a cabaret setting. So we recorded live together directly to digital audio tape - no dubbing, no laying of separate tracks or layering - to be more true to the style of the songs.

The songs are mostly vintage torch and jazz songs from the early half of the 20th century, from great writers like Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Dorothy Field, Billy Rose, Al Dubin, Sammy Cahn, Al Dubin and Harry Warren. Many of the numbers are classics, some undeservedly have rarely been heard.

Fanny Brice used to do "If You Want The Rainbow" and "Cooking Breakfast For The One I Love". "Somebody's Wrong" is a more obscure piece, for which I found the sheet music in an antique store; the cover features Sophie Tucker in her heyday. Al Jolson recorded "Back In Your Own Backyard". Irving Berlin's "All Alone" is an early ballad written after the loss of his first wife, who died early in their marriage. Many of the songs are part of my earliest memories, of my dad's renditions; he had always wanted to be a vaudevillian himself. "Shine" is reminiscent of the vaudeville shows and the New Orleans jazz tunes he used to listen to. I have my own memories of Bing Crosby singing "Million Dollar Baby" on the radio. By the way, the version of "Shine" here is based on the 1924 sheet music and differs somewhat from the more frequently heard Dixieland version.

I'm really happy to have been able to do this recording. After a terrible illness which nearly ended my life, I didn't know if I'd ever regain my speaking voice, much less be able to sing again. Singing has always bee a description of what I do, and who I am. On being moved from intensive care to a regular room, I said to my husband that I doubted I'd ever be able to sing again. I'd just begun to be able to speak. About an hour later, I began softly to test my voice and out came the complete lyrics to "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams", a song I'd never sung before - and didn't know I knew. At that moment I decided, if I ever got my energy back, I'd sing it on my next album.

Finally, the title of this CD, "Whenever I See Your Face", is the name of the original song I wrote and dedicate to my husband Julius.

You can find out more about me on www.CaroleeSings.com