Isn't It de-Lovely? A New Biopic Makes Cole Porter's Music Hard to Resist.
Philadelphia Weekly › July 31, 2009
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Summary
Though Fitzgerald does a nice version of "I'm Always True to You in My Fashion" on Song Book, no one does the song as well as Blossom Dearie. Written in the voice of a woman who'll do anything sexual for money, "Fashion," from Kiss Me Kate, is one of Porter's funniest songs: "There's an oil man known as Tex/Who is keen to give me checks/And his checks, I fear, means that Tex is here to stay ... From Milwaukee Mr. Fritz/Often dines me at the Ritz/Mr. Fritz invented Schlitz and Schlitz must pay ... Mr. Harris, plutocrat, wants to give my cheek a pat/If the Harris pat means a Paris hat--pay, pay!" Dearie's little-girl voice, laced with just a tinge of sarcasm, is a natural fit, and the strange bounce of the high-pitched vibes gives her version a goofy panache. You can hear the song on Blossom's on Broadway.
"Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" is arguably Porter's saddest, most romantic song. On this collection Sarah Vaughan sounds like she's phoning it in--you can almost hear her yawning. I like my sad songs really sad, and one of the best renditions in that vein is, oddly, by Annie Lennox on Red Hot + Blue, a tribute to Cole Porter that includes everyone from Neneh Cherry to Iggy Pop. Lennox puts her heart into that song--dragging it along until it's bleeding--and you simply can't listen to it without feeling that awful ache love can cause.The Very Best Of duplicates a couple of the songs on Cocktails, but holds it own by including Eartha Kitt's rendition of "Let's Misbehave." There's no question the original Catwoman is the perfect person to purr lines like, "There's something wild about you, child, that's so contagious/Let's be outrageous; let's misbehave." The highlight of The Very Best Of is Fred Astaire's version of "Night and Day." His effortless singing is as brisk and nippy as his dancing, and as Porter's contemporary, he seems the perfect representative of that time.See the full content of this document
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Isn't It de-Lovely? A New Biopic Makes Cole Porter's Music Hard to Resist.
It's hard to explain to contemporary listening audiences why Cole Porter rocks, and I suspect De-Lovely, the new movie about his life, won't help matters.
It's not that the film isn't mostly delightful. It's that modern music listeners--fans of Wilco, or the Strokes, or the Rolling Stones, or TV on the Radio, or whatever--don't generally see how Porter could possibly be relevant, ...See the full content of this document
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