This live set was recorded in the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with a full band and a stellar array of guests to celebrate Judy Collins' 50th anniversary as a recording artist. (This is the audio version of the performance – there is another package that includes the full concert on DVD as well as the disc.) For starters, none of Ms. Collins' elegant, mysterious, sophisticated charm has worn off over the decades. In fact, it feels less studied and more organic now.
This live set was recorded in the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with a full band and a stellar array of guests to celebrate Judy Collins' 50th anniversary as a recording artist. (This is the audio version of the performance – there is another package that includes the full concert on DVD as well as the disc.) For starters, none of Ms. Collins' elegant, mysterious, sophisticated charm has worn off over the decades. In fact, it feels less studied and more organic now.
After the one-two punch of Phil Collins' first two solo albums, Face Value and Hello, I Must Be Going!, plus the hits he was concurrently having with Genesis, it might seem like he was primed for an artistic and commercial drop-off. Instead, he responded with the biggest album of his career. No Jacket Required topped the charts in the U.S. and U.K., won a Grammy for Album of the Year, and spawned four Top Ten singles, including two number ones in "Sussudio" and "One More Night." It was such a monster success that it made Collins one of the biggest stars on the planet, something that a few years before seemed unlikely if not impossible…
Phil Collins' first solo album, 1981's Face Value, was a long time coming, but it proved worth the wait, both for the Genesis drummer/vocalist himself and fans of thoughtful, emotionally charged pop. He'd been wrestling with the idea of doing a solo record for years, finding great inspiration in the pain caused by an impending divorce and craving artistic independence after years of collaboration…
Spawning four hit singles, But Seriously topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. While pursuing much of the same formula as on No Jacket Required, there was also a move toward more organic production as Collins abandoned some of the drum machines and prominent keyboards in the up-tempo numbers in favor of live instrumentation…
Phil Collins took a long time to deliver Testify, his first record since redemptive post-divorce album Dance into the Light. On that 1996 affair, he was open to all the possibilities that may arrive during this new act and, accordingly, the album felt expansive…
Originally released in December 1989, "…But Seriously" features many of Phil Collins' biggest hits and was one of the era's biggest selling albums. In the UK, it spent a total of 15 weeks at #1 during an extended run of almost a year in the Top 10 en route to becoming the biggest selling album of 1990. The album campaign culminated with his fourth and fifth BRIT Awards for British Single ( Another Day in Paradise ) and British Male. Internationally, the album scored #1 chart positions all over the globe including a four-week spell atop the Billboard 200.
Like Face Value before it, Both Sides could be characterized as a "divorce album," but marriage wasn't the only thing Phil Collins was leaving behind in 1993. He was two years removed from We Can't Dance, the 1991 album that turned out to be his last with Genesis, so at a personal and professional crossroads, Collins holed up in his home studio to write and record the songs that became Both Sides…
Judy Collins offers up a beautiful compilation of songs she's released on her own Wildflower label over the past decade, sampling from the wonderful Wildflower CDs The Essential Judy Collins, Judy Collins Wildflower Festival, Voices, Shameless, Judy Collins Sings Lennon and McCartney, Paradise, Bohemian, Live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Christmas With Judy Collins, and Live in Ireland. The set includes her lilting defining version of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now", only this version more closely resembles the 1968 version.