Artist: Coral Egan
Album: The Year He Drove Me Crazy
Genre: Vocal Jazz
Label: Justin Time
Released: 2012
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue)
Tracklist:
- The Year He Drove Me Crazy (4:12)
- Soul Sunday (4:38)
- A Couple Apartments Apart (3:56)
- What You Doing (4:28)
- Crossfire (4:12)
- Unwind (3:56)
- Wonderlove (3:33)
- Razor Love (5:36)
- I Do (4:27)
- Storyline (3:50)
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- Personnel:
- Coral Egan - vocals
- Robbie Kuster - drums, percussion, glass marimba, background vocals
- Mishka Stein - bass, background vocals
- Jon Day - piano, keyboards, B3 organ, background vocals
- Warren Spicer - guitars, background vocals
- Jason Levine - beatbox
- Vahe Yegoyan - background vocals
Coral Egan’s return to the studio after five years has yielded an album so personal that it names.
The singer, assisted by songwriter-producer Albert Chambers, has crafted a 10-song set that flirts with cinéma-vérité in its examination of her private life with daughter Lola and partner Vahé Yegoyan. Both are namechecked — along with the family dog — in the sunny, effervescent urban soul track Soul Sunday, which celebrates weekend domestic bliss.
And the directness doesn’t quite end there: Yegoyan shares the cover and some of the album art with Egan, which might make the story a little too specific and literal for some listeners.
But if head-over-heels romance is not what you’re up for, the story has its darker corners: the irritation with a commitment-phobic mate in the gentle rocker What You Doin’, the anxiety of the child caught in a parental power play in the stately Crossfire and the soul-baring neediness of I Do will resonate with any listener whose relationship is going through a rough patch.
Musically, the album once again draws from the golden-era singer-songwriters and the blue-eyed soul that have often inspired Egan to pay stylistic tribute. There’s a generous helping of Steely Dan here, a bit of Laura Nyro there and a dash of Joni Mitchell elsewhere. There’s even some Neil Young — quite literally — in the album’s sole cover version, Razor Love. All of it comes in a spare, sophisticated setting, driven by a piano-trio core.
Patrick Watson members Robbie Kuster and Mishka Stein make up the highly empathetic rhythm section, with Warren Spicer of Plants and Animals making a guest appearance. Surprisingly, the piano work is entirely handled by Jon Day, leaving Egan to focus entirely on singing.
The chemistry of this studio gathering works, yielding a bright, airy performance that would fit with Saturday night after the party or family breakfast the next day.
Review by Bernard Perusse