Bette Midler
Bette Midler
1973: Atlantic 82779-2
Well, she’s pretty sloppy on this overall and sounds like she’s been gargling with gravel, but it was a good introduction to Midler when I was a kid and I still love her cover of “Twisted.” Play that one back to back with Joni Mitchell’s sometime for a good laugh.
An addendum, 14 years after I wrote the above snippet: I really have to note that somehow—despite overexposure in the early years and, far worse, having sung junior-high choral arrangements of them (usually a kiss of death for even a great song)—I actually still like “In the Mood” (and, by the way, her signature arrangement of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” from her preceding/debut album). And by “like” I don’t mean just finding pleasantly tolerable, I mean I really can still listen to them, 45 years later, and say “damn, did she do a good job on those!”
Also, I responded viscerally to this album’s cover art…even bought a poster of it, when I could, a little later. I’ve certainly had a reaction or two to Richard Amsel’s work a few times without having any inkling that I was being drawn to graphic design (which I later came into as a profession by sorta backing in through a side door).
Comments © 2005/2019 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted, and no claim is made to the images and quoted lyrics.