For the Night People

(Liberty: LRP-3478/LST-7478)

Released: 1966

Producer: Calvin Carter. Arranger: Don Bagley

CD Availability: 1998 EMI two-fer, with "Sophisticated Lady."

Liner Notes by Army Archerd:

Are you night people? Julie London is. She's "at home"...at night...with this great album designed for anyone who likes to turn the lights down low, listen, reminisce and dream...about yesterday, tonight, or tomorrow. "Night People" is for "alone people" or the selective, together two's. Luckily, Julie makes loneliness almost welcome as she joins "loners" with this carefully custom-selected series of night songs. Thus, "Saturday Night" is no longer the loneliest night of the year -- when Julie joins in that almost empty room. "Sing what YOU want" was the simple request from Liberty. The previous few years, Julie had been singing the better pop tunes -- since she's always been known as a singer of good songs. But the "pop tunes" weren't always "Julie tunes." "Night People" brings her back to the theme that made her original mark with such former greats as "Night Life," "In the Still of the Night," "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," "Midnight Sun" and, of course, "Cry Me a River." It's almost sadisitc to delight in the magnificent manner in which Julie maintains this mood, but when she sings "I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good"...it's not good, it's great. Similarly, we delight in "Can't Get Out Of This Mood." And in her "Dream," dreams are not as bad as they seem. When she sings the song, "Dreams" is but beautiful. Although Julie's mood is the outstanding theme of this album, it will probably be best-remembered for her revolutionary treatment of "Bill Bailey." Julie's "Bill" is the most unique delivery in the history of this classic. She transforms it into a blues ballad, a plaintive pleading poem. If "Bailey" were to hear Julie he'd be home pronto! And don't fail to bend your ear to the tag of this one.  As an added bonus, Julie gives us a musical picture of yet another of her talents via "God Bless The Child," and -- hopefully -- a preview of her next album. Coincidentally, Julie's singing and acting careers return to what she wants to do with the release of this album, following a long spell associated with TV commercials and title tunes. "Night People" is the "real London sound" -- a sound of her true singing greatness. There's also no doubt about her acting ability, when someone as happy as she sings convincingly "Am I Blue," and "I'll Never Smile Again." The magic mood Julie weaves with these sensuous sounds makes this collection ideal listening for romantics  -- and those who would have us believe they no longer believe in love. welcome "home" Julie -- from all us "Night People."

p.s. Don Bagley's responsible for the great arrangements adding to this mellow mood of midnight plus.

All Music Guide review by Nick Dedina:

After 1959's excellent Julie...at Home, a small-group West Coast session cut in her own living room, Julie London's albums became increasingly orchestral and less jazzy during the first half of the '60s. While many of these albums are excellent (particularly Around Midnight), most weren't up to her best recordings from the 1950s. Then, in 1965 something changed, and stripped-down jazz backings reappeared on her albums until her notorious final disc went soft rock with a vengeance in 1969. For this album, the West Coast arranger and bass player Don Bagley combines an excellent jazz trio with subtle string charts that never swamp the intimate feeling of the disc. London came to fame by recording stripped-down sessions with just guitar and bass, so it makes sense that on For the Night People, an unidentified jazz guitarist gets to solo throughout the album. A typically low-key and melancholy session, standout tracks include a languid reading of the usually manic "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey" and two songs made famous by Frank Sinatra -- "Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night in the Week)" and "I'll Never Smile Again." This album is a must-have for Julie London fans and thankfully she worked with Bagley again on the more upbeat but no-less-languid Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast, which keeps the guitar heard here, but after the title track replaces the strings with a jazz organ and horn.

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Tracks

Nice Girls Don't Stay For Breakfast

(Liberty: LRP-3493/LST-7493)

Released: 1967

Producer: Calvin Carter. Arranger: Don Bagley.

CD Availability: 1997 EMI two-fer, with "The End of the World."

Liner Notes by Arnold Shaw:

The image ineluctable of beauteous Julie London is of the singer of sad love songs. A wonderfully poignant and appealing image it is, calling to mind a distinguished gallery of great performers. Sad-faced Helen Morgan is, perhaps, the prototype of all the torch balladeers who once sang in small, intimate clubs in the wee hours of the morning, standing under a single beam of light. Before the girl who is remembered for her heartbreak rendition of My Bill in Show Boat, there was a funny-faced Fanny Brice, whose singing of My Man remains one of the grand moments of American vaudeville and whose tortured life provided Barbra Streisand with a moving stage role. In the great tradition of torch singing, there's the unforgettable French songbird Edith Piaf, whose depth of feeling transformed disappointment into tragedy, and by contrast, young Dinah Shore with the wistful, little-girl-lost sound of "Ah, the apple trees..." and the pain of The End of A Love Affair.

In our day, Julie London has become the singer par excellence of brittle songs of unreuited and misused love. Hers in not the driving style of the vengeful youngster of "Boots Were Made For Walkin'...over you, man," but of the grief-suppressed romantic of You Made Me Love You...I didn't want to do it...Everything I Have is Yours, I Surrender, Dear, and I Didn't Know What Time It Was. It was ordained that Julie should capture public fancy with Arthur Hamilton's imaginative torcher Cry Me a River. The hoarse, frog-in-throat style and the lowdown, soft-and-slow delivery were as natural to the song and to Julie as thorns to a rose.

In this album, Julie sings some of the great ballads of the '20's and '30's with warmth, intimacy, with deep feeling but not without tasteful restraint. Her delivery is not pop and not quite jazz. Put it on the borderline between the two and call hers the art of nuance. She takes attractive liberties with melodies and phrasing. Disposed to low-register sounds, she makes a telling use of glissando. Look for subtle, understated turns of thought and sound.

Julie -- it's hard to call her anything else when you think of that face -- never needed more accompaniment than a guitar and bass. She supplied all the elements that made singing an experience, and not merely an entertainment. But in this album, producer Calvin Carter has skillfully added contemporary market sounds. And so we have the provocative counterpoint, or as Carter put it, "the side comments," of organ, trumpet and bedroom sax.

Listen after hours...and cry me an old-fashioned glass of tears for all the sad and tender romantics of today and yesterday.

All Music Guide review by Bruce Eder:

Rather late-in-the-day effort by London and producer Calvin Carter, with Don Bagley arranging. The voice is pleasant but unexceptional, and the overall sound is rather dullish, and the emphasis on novelty tunes doesn't really help, though it does add a certain entertainment value.

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Tracks

The Incomparable Miss Julie London: With Body and Soul

(Liberty: LRP-3514/LST-7514)

Released: 1967

Arranger: Kirk Stuart

CD Availability: Not available.

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