Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014)
Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+.cue, log) ~ 177.13 Mb | 31:54 | Covers
Vocal Jazz, Jazz-Pop | Country: Canada | Label: Outside Music (23339-9092-2)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+.cue, log) ~ 177.13 Mb | 31:54 | Covers
Vocal Jazz, Jazz-Pop | Country: Canada | Label: Outside Music (23339-9092-2)
There has been something of a renaissance of what I like to call chanteuse style vocalists, women who borrow from jazz and romantic torch singers of the past in their style. That got a boost back in 2002 with Norah Jones' first album, and there have also been notable recordings by kd lang, Madeleine Peyroux, Judith Owen, and numerous others. They vary in their approach. Some apply their creative energy to adapting the songs of others, while some are singer-songwriters in their own right. Some take a more contemporary direction while others are decidedly retro their sound.
This week we have an enjoyable new record by a Canadian chanteuse who is a also a clever singer-songwriter, and on her new CD definitely takes a retro approach to the arrangements. Jill Barber's new CD is called Fool's Gold.
Jill Barber has lived on both sides of Canada, growing up in Nova Scotia now living in British Columbia, but this new CD was done in Toronto, It's her sixth album.
Known for her distinctive voice, Ms. Barber has recorded songs by others, but this CD is entirely original material, much of it with clever but romantic lyrics, sometimes evoking Tin Pan Alley composers. The arrangements are definitely out of the 1950s and early Sixties, borrowing from Patsy Cline, Ray Charles and Motown in the pronounced backbeat on several songs, and the string section that conjures that era. In her publicity bio for the album, Ms. Barber talks about her nostalgia for that period citing Ray Charles, Etta James and Carole King, though being in her early 30s, that was long before she was born.
She continues her musical collaboration with arrangers Les Cooper and Drew Jurecka. Cooper is also the guitarist, and Jurecka plays violin, clarinet and sax. They come up with a pleasing sound that evokes the era in question but is largely free of cliches. And though the stylistic ingredients are all familiar, Ms. Barber and her band put them together in distinctive ways that can bring smiles, with the combination of the clever lyrics and the music that sounds as if it came out of a slightly mixed up time-warp. Interestingly, Ms. Barber said that a fair amount of the album was done long-distance. At the time, she was a new mother, living Vancouver on the West Coast with her husband raising the baby. She writes, "I won't try to kid you about how hard it is to be a new mother and work at the same time. Time became the new economy. For that reason much of the making of the record came down to instinct… No second guessing."
Leading off this short CD – 31 minutes but 10 songs – is a track called Broken for Good, with a clever lyrical line playing on all those broken heart songs. The arrangement is right out Motown. <<>>
Evoking both the musical spirit and the style of arranging of Patsy Cline records with a dash more Motown thrown in, is The Least That She Deserves. It's another nice piece of writing by Ms. Barber. <<>>
Another retro approach comes on Let's Call It Love, which to me evokes doo-wop era ballads. <<>>
A song called The Careless One was inspired by a Canadian broadcast on which she appeared that paid tribute to the 60th anniversary of the death of Hank Williams. She wrote the song with Steve Dawson, a Canadian native based in Nashville. <<>>
For me one of the most intriguing-sounding songs is a piece called To the Last. With its minor key and smoky mood, it hints to me of film noir. I think it's one of the highlights of the album. <<>>
On the other hand, Darling It Was You is a wonderfully clever song about giving one's beau the old heave-ho. <<>>
Just the opposite approach is taken on the following track Only You, an old-fashioned romantic ballad, very appealingly done. <<>>
Jill Barber's new sixth release Fool's Gold is a thoroughly enjoyable album by a talented, distinctive and astute Canadian chanteuse and songwriter. She has an interesting but very appealing vocal style, her songwriting is often lyrically wry and musically evocative of past eras from Tin Pan Alley to Motown. The arrangements and accompaniments are definitely designed to conjure a by gone period without being slavishly imitative. The way the familiar influences are put together gives the album its creativity and marks it as more than another retro record.
Our grade for sound quality is about a B-plus. One can hear everything well in the mix, and the recording is not too badly compressed. But it was designed to evoke the sound of old recordings. Fortunately, they did not resort to adding audio defects as has been done a number of retro-sounding records. But Fool's Gold lacks some sonic warmth and intimacy that could have enhanced the music.
Among the current crop of chanteuse vocalists, there are those who create their own music, and those who evoke past musical eras. Jill Barber does both on her fine new CD. ~ Review by George Graham
Jill Barber - vocals
Les Cooper - guitars
Robbie Grunwald - piano, organ, keyboards
Drew Jurecka - violin, clarinet, saxophones
Mark Mariash - drums (except #1)
Steve Zsirai - bass
Track List:
01. Broken for Good (3:08)
02. The Least That She Deserves (4:04)
03. Let's Call It Love (3:16)
04. The Careless One (3:43)
05. If Only in My Mind (2:53)
06. To the Last (3:44)
07. Lucky in Love (3:13)
08. Darlin' It Was You (2:36)
09. Only You (2:42)
10. If You're Going to Break My Heart (2:35)
Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014)
Exact Audio Copy V1.3 from 2. September 2016
EAC extraction logfile from 21. September 2017, 23:17
Jill Barber / Fool's Gold
Used drive : ATAPI DVD A DH16AAL Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -e -p -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 3:07.62 | 0 | 14086
2 | 3:07.62 | 4:04.21 | 14087 | 32407
3 | 7:12.08 | 3:16.11 | 32408 | 47118
4 | 10:28.19 | 3:42.38 | 47119 | 63806
5 | 14:10.57 | 2:52.60 | 63807 | 76766
6 | 17:03.42 | 3:44.09 | 76767 | 93575
7 | 20:47.51 | 3:12.58 | 93576 | 108033
8 | 24:00.34 | 2:35.54 | 108034 | 119712
9 | 26:36.13 | 2:42.32 | 119713 | 131894
10 | 29:18.45 | 2:34.72 | 131895 | 143516
Track 1
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\01 - Broken For Good.wav
Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 1.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC D66F6875
Copy CRC D66F6875
Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [0A780D23] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 2
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\02 - The Least That She Deserves.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 1.9 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 2815F707
Copy CRC 2815F707
Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [39162B3B] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 3
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\03 - Let's Call It Love.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 2.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC BD1ED376
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Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [268854A1] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 4
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\04 - The Careless One.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 2.2 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 9360D2C7
Copy CRC 9360D2C7
Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [71E2EF88] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 5
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\05 - If Only In My Mind.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 2.3 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 3D609140
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Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [06077D63] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 6
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\06 - To The Last.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 1.8 X
Track quality 99.9 %
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Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [9A06A123] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 7
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\07 - Lucky In Love.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 2.6 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 840C6821
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Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [B2AC55E8] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 8
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\08 - Darlin' It Was You.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 1.6 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC C01697F3
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Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [02BD91B3] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 9
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\09 - Only You.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 2.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 38A8F5B2
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Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [A3875423] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 10
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\10 - If You're Going To Break My Heart.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 2.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC F2D640CA
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Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [489AEFA1] (AR v2)
Copy OK
All tracks accurately ripped
No errors occurred
End of status report
–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6
[CTDB TOCID: K8PSng1qEWg5qkdNGYWUa8IJYSo-] found
Submit result: already submitted
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
2 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
3 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
4 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
5 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
6 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
7 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
8 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
9 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
10 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
==== Log checksum 960567298D6801E551FC67765756213D61BC1990FF77BD41BCF757CD5DBFE0BB ====
EAC extraction logfile from 21. September 2017, 23:17
Jill Barber / Fool's Gold
Used drive : ATAPI DVD A DH16AAL Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -e -p -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 3:07.62 | 0 | 14086
2 | 3:07.62 | 4:04.21 | 14087 | 32407
3 | 7:12.08 | 3:16.11 | 32408 | 47118
4 | 10:28.19 | 3:42.38 | 47119 | 63806
5 | 14:10.57 | 2:52.60 | 63807 | 76766
6 | 17:03.42 | 3:44.09 | 76767 | 93575
7 | 20:47.51 | 3:12.58 | 93576 | 108033
8 | 24:00.34 | 2:35.54 | 108034 | 119712
9 | 26:36.13 | 2:42.32 | 119713 | 131894
10 | 29:18.45 | 2:34.72 | 131895 | 143516
Track 1
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\01 - Broken For Good.wav
Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 1.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC D66F6875
Copy CRC D66F6875
Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [0A780D23] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 2
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\02 - The Least That She Deserves.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 1.9 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 2815F707
Copy CRC 2815F707
Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [39162B3B] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 3
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\03 - Let's Call It Love.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 2.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC BD1ED376
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Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [268854A1] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 4
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\04 - The Careless One.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 2.2 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 9360D2C7
Copy CRC 9360D2C7
Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [71E2EF88] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 5
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\05 - If Only In My Mind.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 2.3 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 3D609140
Copy CRC 3D609140
Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [06077D63] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 6
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\06 - To The Last.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 1.8 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 35EE1A6E
Copy CRC 35EE1A6E
Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [9A06A123] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 7
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\07 - Lucky In Love.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 2.6 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 840C6821
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Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [B2AC55E8] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 8
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\08 - Darlin' It Was You.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 1.6 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC C01697F3
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Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [02BD91B3] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 9
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\09 - Only You.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 2.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 38A8F5B2
Copy CRC 38A8F5B2
Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [A3875423] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 10
Filename C:\Zelou\EAC Rips\Jill Barber - Fool's Gold (2014) [FLAC]\10 - If You're Going To Break My Heart.wav
Peak level 97.7 %
Extraction speed 2.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC F2D640CA
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Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [489AEFA1] (AR v2)
Copy OK
All tracks accurately ripped
No errors occurred
End of status report
–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6
[CTDB TOCID: K8PSng1qEWg5qkdNGYWUa8IJYSo-] found
Submit result: already submitted
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
2 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
3 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
4 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
5 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
6 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
7 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
8 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
9 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
10 | (29/29) Accurately ripped
==== Log checksum 960567298D6801E551FC67765756213D61BC1990FF77BD41BCF757CD5DBFE0BB ====
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