Cassandra Wilson - Glamoured (2003/2019) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Cassandra Wilson has garnered a deserving reputation for her soulful, visionary reads of songs by legendary composers old and new, from Robert Johnson to Van Morrison. On Glamoured, Wilson composed half the album, and her songs are as provocative and deserve the same weight of grace critically afforded her covers. She uses her trademark fluid, smoky delivery to redefine songs such as the old soul nugget "If Loving You Is Wrong"; the poignancy it was written with tells of a woman lost in the delirium of a forbidden love with a married man. The ache and euphoria in her voice shot through with producer Fabrizio Sotti's stunning acoustic guitar interplay is nearly overwhelming in its emotion. Her Afro-Caribbean read of Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" is a different – and perhaps better – version than the original. It doesn't weep and it doesn't get bogged down in its melody; it is shot through with a smoldering drone and eclectic polyrhythms that reinvent it harmonically. Willie Nelson's "Crazy" is kissed with the same elegance and soul that her version of "Tupelo Honey" was. But it is on Muddy Waters' "Honey Bee" and Abbey Lincoln's "Throw It Away," which closes the album, that Wilson offers her greatest gift: that of an improvisational blues and jazz singer who understands these songs to be living embodiments of still developing traditions. Recorded in Jackson, MS, her hometown, these songs are shot through with mischief; a controlled, winking sensuality; greasy, rollicking, and syncopated rhythms; and melody lines to kill for. Wilson's songs, particularly "I Want More" and "What Is It?" with their funky backbeats and jagged verses, are seemingly new forms for the pop song, while "Broken Drum," "Sleight of Time," and "Heaven Knows" could have been written for Nina Simone, such are their out-of-the-ages, folk-infused jazzy cadences, but Wilson makes them unclassifiable in terms of any time but the present and she is working out new forms for color, phrasing, and rhythmic interplay for her voice. Glamoured, like its Gaelic definition, is the sound of the supernatural in a human being. AllMusic Review by Thom Jurek

Tracklist:
1. Fragile 04:36
2. Sleight Of Time 04:16
3. I Want More 04:23
4. If Loving You Is Wrong 05:31
5. Lay Lady Lay 05:11
6. Crazy 03:03
7. What Is It? 03:22
8. Heaven Knows 05:09
9. Honey Bee 04:51
10. Broken Drum 04:14
11. On This Train 04:38
12. Throw It Away 04:34
13. Allow Me (Bonus Track) 04:30
14. Once In A Blue Moon (Bonus Track) 05:05

Personnel:
Cassandra Wilson, vocals, guitar
Herlin Riley, drums, washboard
Terri Lyne Carrington, drums
Reginald Veal, double bass
Calvin "Fuzz" Jones, double bass
Jeff Haynes, percussion
Brandon Ross, banjo, guitar
Gregoire Maret, harmonica
Fabrizio Sotti, guitar

Recorded at Sonic Temple, Jackson, MS December 2002 and Februaury 2003; Avatar Studios & Breezy's Lab, NYC February & March, 2003
Mixed at Avatar Studios NYC April 2003
Mastered at Sterling Sound NYC, April 2003
Produced by Bruce Lundvall, Cassandra Wilson

Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio From Original Master Tape!