Murray McLauchlan - the 2006 CD,
The Songbook - New Arrivals: Songs from the Musical, 'Eddie'
Murray McLauchlan has been many things throughout
his career: award-winning folk and country artist,
popular TV and radio host, acclaimed author and respected
Order of Canada recipient. Now, with his latest album, The
Songbook – New Arrivals: Songs from the Musical
Eddie, released October 3rd, the legendary Canadian
singer-songwriter has reinvented himself once again.
The songs on the new recording are drawn from a McLauchlan-penned
musical and inspired by jazz and Broadway show tunes.
His fans are bound to be surprised by the stylistic
shift, but McLauchlan says that he’s merely exploring
a longstanding love of the American Songbook. “I
grew up knowing the compositions of Harold Arlen and
Cole Porter and decided to try my hand at that style,” says
McLauchlan. “What I found is that I really love
writing songs in this genre—it’s a lot
of fun.”
That sense of fun shines through on the album, which follows the story of Eddie Stayner, a lounge singer from small-town Canada. Songs like “When You’re at the Top” and “Break My Fall” chart Eddie’s rise and fall in the music world with humor and poignancy, while “My Martini” and “The Luckiest Guy” are playful soft-shoe song and dance numbers. Meanwhile, some of the album’s best songs are those that deal with Eddie’s affair with nightclub singer Betty Sparling, including the romantic ballads “Love Just Can’t Tell Time” and “Fallin’ in Love,” a duet that McLauchlan performs with renowned Canadian vocalist Cindy Church. A member of the popular singing group Quartette, who also sings with McLauchlan in Lunch at Allen’s, Church also takes a solo turn on the swinging “I Never Will Marry.”
McLauchlan’s distinctive voice found a comfortable home in the hands of arranger-pianist Mark Hukezalie, who the singer met through Canadian jazz legend Guido Basso. “Mark’s an undiscovered treasure,” says McLauchlan. “He’s a wonderful guy to sing to because he really listens to the singer, and that’s rare.” The musicians that worked on the album, including guitarist Michael Francis, bassist, Scott Alexander and drummer Kevan MacKenzie, are also highly talented players. “They’re all jazz players who did wonderful things with the musicality of the songs,” says McLauchlan.
The musical had its origins when McLauchlan wrote some songs for Canadian jazz chanteuse Molly Johnson in the late 1980s. Years later, the songwriter decided to publish and record those songs and some others himself and then seized on the idea of writing a musical about what he calls a “screwed up saloon singer.” After meeting theatre impresario David Mirvish, McLauchlan was encouraged to work on the dramatic underpinnings of the story further and develop the musical for the stage. Eddie made its debut at the Village Theatre in Hudson, Quebec in the spring of 2004. In the stage production, the character of Eddie was played by Adam James, a Montreal singer-actor known for his appearances in various Sinatra revues. Several of the songs that McLauchlan originally wrote for Johnson, including the melancholic “Second Half of Life” and the bluesy “What’s Goin’ on with You,” wound up in the stage show and appear on this album.
Full track listing:
- 1. I’m Not Gonna Waste a Minute (Of My Life)
- 2. Love Just Can’t Tell Time
- 3. My Martini
- 4. The Second Half of Life
- 5. Little White Lies
- 6. You know that you’re Fallin’ in Love
- 7. When you’re at the Top
- 8. The Luckiest Guy
- 9. What’s Goin’ On With You
- 10. Break My Fall
- 11. I Try Too Hard
- 12. I Never Will Marry
- 13. Ambitious Life
- 14. Say Goodbye
"The Songbook … New Arrivals (EMI) Canadian folk-rock icon Murray McLauchlan might be the last singer on the planet to climb aboard the jazz bandwagon. But to his credit, he might be the first to bring his own material instead of just hauling out the usual Tin Pan Alley classics. True to its title, McLauchlan’s The Songbook - New Arrivals attempts to update the crooner canon with swinging cuts from his musical Eddie... upbeat finger-poppers like 'My Martini' and 'Break My Fall' (not to mention torchy ballads like 'Ambitious Life') wouldn’t be out of place in any lounge lizard’s set. The difference between these songs and the old faves? Rod Stewart hasn’t butchered these yet." - Daryl Sterdan, Winnipeg Sun
To hear some excerpts from the CD, click here...
