Tony-winner Betty Buckley’s long-forgotten and never-produced first recording, Betty Buckley 1967, is 11 songs of pure pleasure, and the story of how this CD came to be released only adds to it.
A Young Voice, A Different Time
Betty Buckley was 19, a cheerleader at TCU, and singing in one of Fort Worth, Texas’, few nightclubs when she went to the city’s only recording studio with her jazz trio and laid down 11 tracks. The engineer was none other than future Grammy-winner and Academy Award-nominee T. Bone Burnett.
Buckley was too young and new at the business to know any better than to just sing. There were no second takes.
There didn’t need to be any.
The Joy of Singing
On the CD’s fifth cut "They Were You", from The Fantastiks, if you keep listening just a little bit after the song ends, you’ll hear the alluring laugh of a young woman somewhere between being Miss Fort Worth and landing her big break on Broadway. It’s the laugh of someone who can’t quite believe her luck at getting paid to do what she loves to do.
You might laugh, too, for the pure enjoyment of it. The songs range from Broadway, Bye-Bye Birdie’s "One Boy;" to classic, "My Funny Valentine;" to pop, "Call Me;" and a whole lot of other places in between.
What they all share is a very simple piano-bass-drum backup for Buckley’s voice, which, sultry, sexy or belting, just about jumps off the CD, and I mean that in the very best way.
This is someone who loves to sings, loves her songs, loves her present, and loves her future.
The Sound of the Times and More
Today, more than a few artists sing songs from the ’60s, but they are produced with only a memory of those times, because, typically, neither the artist nor the producer was born in the decade. Buckley was in that time, and her singing, her arrangements, even the song selection, is of that time.
To hear Boyce and Hart ("I Wanna Be Free") and Anthony Newley ("Who Can I Turn To") stripped down to a jazz trio and Buckley’s voice is like finding a whole new chapter to a book you thought you’d finished.
Then there’s the “cool-man-cool” reinterpretation of Gershwin ("They Can’t Take That Away from Me") and Rodgers and Hart’s ("Valentine.")
It’s simplest to say, you have got to get this CD.
The Story Behind the CD
It was Playbill Senior Editor Andrew Gans who pestered Buckley to let him hear the long-packed-away recording. She hand-carried it to producers at Playbill Records, fearing to trust her only copy to the mail.
Playbill Records ended up producing it in partnership with Sony BMG Masterworks, and to all of those involved, I say, “Thanks.”
Betty Buckley 1967 Release Details
- Artist: Betty Buckley
- Label: Playbill Records
- Release Date: October 2007