ARTIST: Diana Ross
TITLE: Blue
LABEL: Motown
GENRE: R&B
BITRATE: 176kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 50min total
RELEASE DATE: 2006-06-20
RIP DATE: 2006-05-24

Track List

01. What A Diff'Rence A Day Makes   3:29
02. No More                         3:09
03. Let's Do It                     3:00
04. I Loves Ya Porgy                5:11
05. Smile                           2:58
06. But Beautiful                   2:50
07. Had You Been Around             3:30
08. Little Girl Blue                4:00
09. Can't Get Started With You      3:10
10. Love Is Here To Stay            2:13
11. You've Changed                  2:54
12. My Man (Mon Homme)              3:31
13. Easy Living (bonus track)       2:54
14. Solitude (bonus track)          2:05
15. He's Funny That Way (bonus      3:02
track)
16. T'Ain't Nobody's Bizness If I   2:22
Do (bonus track)

Release Notes:

Nearly 35 years after being tagged for debasing Billie Holiday's legacy with her
slick pop vocals in the biopic Lady Sings the Blues--an approach producer Berry
Gordy claims he had her take to make her "more relatable to a general
audience"--Diana Ross gets a chance to redeem herself with these jazzier,
alternate versions of the same material. Recorded around the time of the 1972
film (several bonus tracks come directly from the movie sessions), the original
album was conceived as a companion piece to the soundtrack. But it was shelved
and, we are told, lost in the vaults until recently. The good news is that when
she commits herself to jazz, with a group of top jazz musicians behind her
(playing arrangements by Benny Golson and Oliver Nelson), Ross holds her own.
Her renditions of Holiday staples such as "You've Changed" and "Easy Living" are
a bit mild, but lovely and relaxed. She makes up for the basic thinness of her
voice with her cool, immaculate handling of melody. It's when she relies on her
pop-soul instincts, as she does on a painfully awkward reading of "I Loves You
Porgy," or has to contend with album arranger Gil Askey's Vegas-style touches,
that she sounds unconvincing or unsteady. But Ross' diehard fans won't want to
be without "Blue" and her more casual admirers will be intrigued by this
departure.