Press

Released May 20, 2022

Lori Lieberman is best known for the hit song, Killing Me Softly which is based on her poem detailing her experience at the Troubadour in Los Angeles back in the early 70’s. She was the first to record the song on her debut album for Capitol Records and was the featured artist on American Airlines’ in-flight listening program, where Roberta Flack first heard the song. Roberta Flack’s recording earned her two Grammys that year, and the song has been recorded over the years by an unlimited number of well-known artists, including the Fugees, Frank Sinatra, and countless others.

Over the past five decades, Lori Lieberman has remained in the spotlight, gleaning the respect of an industry and a devoted base of fans. She has recorded over 18 albums and has toured worldwide, including twice to sold-out audiences at Carnegie Hall, and the noted Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Lori grew up in Switzerland, one of three sisters, surrounded by musical influences that included Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Dionne Warwick, to name a few. She moved to Los Angeles, signed with Capitol Records, became part of the West Coast music scene, and toured with Leonard Cohen, Billy Joel, Kenny Rankin, Randy Newman, and many others.

As one of the industry’s most prolific songwriters, Lori Lieberman has continued to record for nearly five decades and has worked with some of the most talented songwriters in both the US and abroad. Her arranging and production skills led to highly reviewed bodies of work and featured the noted Matangi Quartet from the Netherlands on her Ready for the Storm and The Girl and The Cat albums. Her recent entry, singing songs from the American Songbook, is the focus of her CD, Truly, co-produced by Lieberman and noted arranger/pianist, Matt Rollings. Featuring a stellar jazz quartet and engineered by the legendary Bob Clearmountain, this well-received record further demonstrates that Lori Lieberman is one of our most versatile and enduring artists.

TRACK LIST

1. You Go To My Head
2. Moonlight in Vermont
3. I Like the Likes of You
4. What Kind Of Fool am I
5. Truly
6. It Might As Well be Spring (C’est le Printemps)
7. Killling Me Softy
8. You Are Not my First Love
9. My One and Only Love
10. She Knows Better
11. Love’s a Fragile Thing
12. Que Sera, Sera

CREDITS

Recorded Live at Apogee Studios 192/24
Engineered and mixed by Bob Clearmountain
Produced by Lori Lieberman and Matt Rollings
Featuring: Matt Rollings, piano – David Piltch, bass – Lyle Workman, guitar -Victor Indrizzo, drums

Booking/Management: Judy Werle | Suite 5 Artists | 206-706-7960 judy@suite5.com

Lori Lieberman’s Exquisite Album of Loss and Regret

Michael Fremer | Analogue Planet

Cushioned by the Netherlands-based Matangi String Quartet, plus bass drums, percussion and occasional guitar, singer/songwriter/pianist Lori Lieberman delivers a tender, occasionally excruciatingly intimate song cycle replete with regret, heartache, abandonment, longing, and loss.

The opener “You Can’t Take it Back” serves as an admonition about acting in haste and regretting it. “Even though I took the blame, I would have lost him anyway” the song’s character admits. “Martha and Me”, is based on a playwright Marian Fontana’s short story about two very different women, both of whom lost their husbands on 9/11. The two were members of Brooklyn’s Squad One, an elite FDNY team of first responders that lost a dozen members that day. One was Fontana’s husband Dave.

In the heartbreaking Lieberman -penned title tune, a mother thinks about her drug addicted daughter who left home “dirty” never to return and is now clean, pregnant and remains estranged. A fanciful one, is “Girl Writing A Letter”, based on a William Carpenter poem is about an art theft at Boston’s Gardner Museum. There’s an uplifting, generational tune (“Woman”) The closer (“Blue”) is about trying to let go and start afresh and what really matters in life. It’s told from the point of view of a dog named Blue.

From the description this song cycle may sound depressing—but at the same time though, thanks to Lieberman’s deft, heartfelt performances, it’s also uplifting and somehow healing—especially if you’ve not experienced anything remotely like what the people in these songs have, in which case you’ll come away thankful. Of course, if you’ve never been dumped, betrayed, or had your heart broken, I don’t think you’ve really lived.

The tone and mood here somehow remind me of the vibe staked out by Sufjan Stevens on his 2005 Illinois, especially his chilling song “John Wayne Gacy, Jr”, though none of the subject matter here is that dark.

More recently we were invited to hear Lieberman perform live accompanied by The Matangi Quartet at Carnegie Hall. She proved to be as effective and entrancing in concert as she is in the studio—which is not always the case. It was a thoroughly transportive evening. I’ve been playing the album for weeks now preparing this review and each play reveals something new in Ms. Lieberman’s performance and in the subtleties of the arrangements, which she co-wrote and the beauty of the instrumental performances.

The 192/24-bit recording is direct and honest and 100% digital artifact-free. The perspective puts Lieberman’s voice close but not in your face and she’s presented pretty much unadorned something only an accomplished vocalist can successfully pull off, which she does. Bob Clearmountain’s tasteful mix puts Lieberman right there in front of you, but not too close, sometimes with harmonies subtly overdubbed. The richly recorded strings (produced in The Netherlands) add sweeping drama to her piano, which floats effectively somewhat in the background. The result is a comfortable place in which to spend sonic time. The record is filled with memorable melodies and lyrical drama. For me, for whatever reason or reasons the haunting “Hallie” is the one that I keep hearing in my head.

Pressed on two 180g 45rpm LPs and presented in a gatefold jacket (in which the art director got the spine upside down). Grammy Award winner Darcy Proper mastered the project.

The Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse classic “What Kind of Fool Am I” builds to a climax that Lieberman skillfully builds towards and successfully negotiates. A breakthrough performance. The self-penned title tune is a dramatic Tango punctuated by Lyle Workman’s simmering guitar lines. The title tune isn’t always an album’s highlight. This one is. And Lieberman’s version of “It Might As Well Be Spring” is sung in French- hardly a stretch for the Swiss native and delightfully delivered.

The sound on this record should convince even the most anti-digital diehard that it’s time to give it up—at least when it comes to new original productions. If there’s analog tape, use it, sure, for reissues or for new productions if you have the guts, time, and money. However, the sound of this file transferred to lacquer is as natural and three-dimensional as recordings get, regardless of technology.

It’s more about the studio, the board, the microphones, and the person at the controls—in this case, Bob Clearmountain—than it is about how the production gets stored. It took me decades to come around to writing that but listen to this record and tell me how you can disagree. You can’t!

Set the volume correctly and you’ll be in the studio with Lori and the band performing live just for you. The QRP pressing is dead quiet, flat, and as perfect as is the recording.