When Good Things Happen to Bad Pianos

by Paul Wallfisch, Little Annie

Overview

2006's Songs from the Coalmine Canary was an abrupt departure from the dub-inflected dance-rock eclecticism of Little Annie's previous albums, a disc's worth of dramatic cabaret-style torch songs in the manner of a downtown hipster Edith Piaf produced by scene maven Anthony Hegarty. The follow-up, When Good Things Happen to Bad Pianos, takes the idea one step further: a collaboration between Little Annie and pianist Paul Wallfisch on nine vintage cover songs (plus one brief holiday-themed original at the end), this is torch singing in extremis. Little Annie's voice, never an instrument of beauty, sounds positively ravaged at times, recalling Broken English era Marianne Faithfull and Billie Holiday towards the end of her life. But there's an elegance and grace to her delivery, both on traditional examples of the form like "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)" and Charles Aznavour's "Yesterday When I Was Young," and unexpected recastings like Tina Turner's "Private Dancer," which she turns into a wounded but proud meditation, and U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," which becomes almost unbearably tragic, sounding more like vintage Jacques Brel than the one Brel cover, "If You Go Away," does. Less of a shock than Songs from the Coalmine Canary, which was the sort of late-career reinvention that not many artists get to pull off, When Good Things Happen to Bad Pianos is an entirely worthy follow-up. ~ Stewart Mason

Product Details

Release Date:	02/12/2008
Label:	Durtro Jnana
UPC:	0718752830621

Tracks

1. It Was a Very Good Year
2. Song for You
3. Private Dancer
4. One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)
5. If You Go Away
6. Victim
7. Yesterday When I Was Young
8. The Summer Knows
9. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
10. All I Want for Christmas

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Paul Wallfisch   Primary Artist,Guitar,Synthesizer,Vocals (Background),Bass,Piano
Little Annie   Primary Artist
Kid Congo Powers   Guitar (Electric),Vocals (Background)
Jeff Pierce   Trumpet

Technical Credits

Paul Wallfisch   Composer,Engineer,Producer
Harold Arlen   Composer
Jacques Brel   Composer
Fred Kevorkian   Mastering
U2   Composer
Marilyn Bergman   Composer
Rod McKuen   Composer
Johnny Mercer   Composer
Michel Legrand   Composer
Herbert Kretzmer   Composer
Alan Bergman   Composer
Charles Aznavour   Composer
Ervin Drake   Composer
Leon Russell   Composer
Mark Knopfler   Composer
Rick Klaver   Package Design