How Do You Pronounce Her Name?

In this blog I want to cover, what is for me a new talent, although she has been around for a while.  This is one of those artists I discovered by accident, trolling for new song material.  At the time I was listening to and searching for various versions of Burt Bacharach songs.  I am always impressed with the melodies and lyrics in Burt Bacharach pieces.  Random trolling is how I make my best discoveries. 

This artist is not from the United States.  I have never heard her material on the radio, although I don't listen to many stations.  However, I never see her material being promoted on most of the music sites.  She often performs songs in her native language but, being American and English being my native tongue, I have a bias for the pieces she performs in English.  Her voice is so powerful that I would hope that in the future she will gain a greater world following.

This artist was born in 1973 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.  This is the year I graduated from high school, so she is an example, to me at least, of a younger artist performing in a style that hearkens back to earlier times.  In her biography we are told that her father is a theologian and her mother is a flutist with the Amsterdam Promenada Orchestra.  Her influences include Billie Holiday and George Gershwin and it is said that she favors jazz vocals, although she performs pop material as well.  In fact one of her latest releases could be called Netherlands hip hop.  In her younger years she formed a band with her brother, so this is definitely a musical family.

She has collaborated with Burt Bacharach on more than one album and he plays piano backup for her on several numbers.  In investigating her discography I see she has gold albums and at least one double platinum album (A Burt Bacharach Collaboration), so she is probably more well known than I thought, but perhaps not so well known in the U.S.  In the 90's she toured with jazz saxophonist Candy Dulfer and more recently Lionel Richie released a live track in which he performs a duet with this artist (Face In The Crowd).  In a small way I hope my blog can gain her some more recognition, because her talent should be shared with a wider audience. 

Okay, I suppose you want to know the name of this artist.  Her name is Trijntje Oosterhuis and you will have to watch one the clips below to hear how her name is pronounced.  Even after hearing it, I'm not sure I could pronounce it right.  But strange name or not, what a voice.  Also, I must also mention the wonderful backup orchestration on the Burt Bacharach numbers.  They truly give a new and unique take on well known songs that have been performed by many other artists previously.

I notice on this album that they've done a phonetic spelling of Trijntje's name so poor English speaking people like me can pronounce it.   To continue, probably my favorite pieces are found on two of Trijntje's albums, Look of Love: Burt Bacharach Songbook and Who'll Speak For Love.  I think every track on these albums is great.  My favorites on the first album include Do You Know The Way To San Jose?, Look Of Love, House Is Not A Home, I Say A Little Prayer For You, I'll Never Fall In Love Again, Walk On By, Anyone Who Had A Heart, and (They Long To Be) Close To You. 

My favorites on the second album include Any Day Now, What The World Needs Now, One Less Bell To Answer, In Between The Heartaches, God Give Me Strength, I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself, and Don't Make Me Over.

Enjoy a couple of her hits from a live performance:

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps....it was meant to be

I discovered Pandora, the free music radio site a few years back.  Pandora randomly streams songs to a station you create.  To set up a station you first add songs and artists that fit your tastes.  This gives Pandora an idea of the kind of music preferred and it starts feeding you music in that preference range.  In the free version you have the ability to reject a certain number of pieces that don't fit your preferences, before this ability is shut off.  At that time I was mostly listening to 60's, 70's and 80's rock. 

For some reason Doris Day's song Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps came up on the playlist.  All I can say is that it was some kind of epiphany for me.  I was blown away by this recording.  How could a song recorded back in the 60's by an artist so "out of date" (sorry Doris) sound so modern and why wasn't this song being played on a radio station somewhere?  Of course I know it's not the kind of song played on rock stations, but why not some station somewhere?

I guess it's a sign of the times that most entertainment is now controlled under corporate structures that frankly have turned the radio waves into soulless clone stations.  However, most of us now know there are countless ways to find our own particular style of music and with a personal mp3 player and computer have it available at our fingertips. 

Once I had discovered Doris Day's Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps, I became very curious to find out what other recordings she had produced and, for that matter, what other music similar to this was out there.  And so I first created a Doris Day radio station on Pandora which started to feed my musical desires.  That was great, but I also wanted to share my new found music with others and find out what others are listening to. So, I am attempting to do that through this blog.  I know this will be a slow process, but as my blog grows, perhaps others will discover it and come on board.  Is there a half forgotten or little known artist out there performing my kind of music just waiting to be discovered?  I want to know so I can add their music to my playlist and hopefully I can help others widen their musical library.

So, Doris Day is my pick to cover in today's blog, because her song opened up a whole new world of music to me.  Thank you Doris.  In the future I will probably do a short biography of the artist covered, but Doris Day's career has such a rich history, and there are so many good biographies that cover the highlights of her career and life, I could never hope to do her justice.  So, please click on her name anywhere in this blog to go to one of the better biographical sites that tells everything you ever wanted to know about Doris Day.

Here are some other gems by Doris:

 I'll Be Around.  This is a great romantic ballad that I never grow tired of.

Several of my favorites are found in this collection.  I've listened to A Perfect Understanding many times; the strings in the background make this song unique.  Should I Surrender has that famous Doris "virginal" quality.  Send Me No Flowers , Move Over Darling,  and Lover Come Back are probably more in the pop category, but I wouldn't leave them out of my collection.  And there is Caprice, a love song with a French flair. 

Let It Ring is also one of my favorites and one of the sexiest songs performed by Doris.

Here goes .... My First Post

Hello World,
I never thought I would be blogging until someone I was having a business meeting with the other day mentioned how a woman he knew had started a blog about sharing recipes.  He said at first no one knew she was out there.  Then, as time went by people began to find her blog through searches and they began sharing their recipes as well.  Now, her blog is fairly well known.  This gentleman then proceeded to ask me about my interests.  I mentioned that I loved music, but my tastes were probably outside the norm.

I'm not sure how to exactly describe my musical tastes except by referring to the title of this blog - Ballad, Balladeers, Balladists, and Balladry.  I guess for short you could call it "B4."  And that leads to an explanation.  Most of the music I now listen to comes from (B4) before the rock 'n' roll era.  A lot of the music could be called lounge music, performed by well known artists like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin, etc. However, I don't limit myself to just these artists.  Many present day performers are releasing new versions of such music and there are other songs that may fall under the pop label, but I have no trouble including them, since they are performed with a lush orchestral background, or they may just be a memorable song from my childhood (late 1950's to early 1960's).

Getting back to my conversation, after I explained my musical tastes to the businessman he smiled and said that would make a great idea for a blog - sharing my taste in music with others.  And, so here I am hoping to find others out there with my musical tastes so I can continue to find new musical material and hopefully pass on some musical choices to others.  It would make me happy to know that this music has not been completely forgotten and that it continues to be played and passed on.

So, how do I proceed?  My plan is to pick an artist at random and do some historical research on the artist and then point out some songs that I enjoy by that artist.  Tomorrow, is Memorial Day and that should give me time to research my first artist.  I know who it will be, but you will have to read the next post to find out.