Amanda McBroom - Voices (2017)

In her ninth recording Amanda McBroom writes and sings stories in the voices of women in transition - the bittersweet reflections of a woman travelling on a train from one life to another, the wife of a fireman in the Yarnell Hills fire in Arizona waiting for her husband to come home, the isolation and fear of a young woman hearing voices come through the wall in a family unable to express their feelings, the humor and joy of finding love at an advanced age.

As a singer and a songwriter, Amanda is not new to emotion in song. THE ROSE captured the world's heart when Bette Midler sang it for the film of the same name and earned Amanda a Golden Globe for Best Film Song, a roomful of gold and platinum records, and a wave of worldwide recordings and uses of the song including a #1 hit in the UK by boy band Westlife and a verse unexpectedly sung by Kurt Cobain in the documentary Montage of Heck. It is the outpouring of gratitude from people around the world that sing the song at weddings and funerals, with families, friends, and choirs that is Amanda's biggest reward. But anyone who has ever heard Amanda herself sing THE ROSE in her live concerts around the world - from Taiwan's Sun Yat Sen Concert Hall to Australia's Adelaide Cabaret Festival to the intimate Pheastranty in London or Carnegie Hall - would say that she captures the emotion, passion and love of her song better than anyone. When Amanda got the call to sing THE ROSE in a duet with Vince Gill, her favorite voice of America, she jumped at the chance. The call came from Fred Mollin, producer of best sellers for Jimmy Webb, Kris Kristoferson, and J.D. Souther as well as Amanda's A WAITING HEART. She listened to the voices of her friends and fans and created the project through Kickstarter. She assembled a team of social media experts, videographers and oversubscribed the project in less than 30 days.

VOICES was recorded in Nashville at the Sound Emporium.

Review:
Wounded hearts are one of the collection's pressing themes, perhaps the overarching theme. A related issue is the all-too-often transitory nature of love. Also stressed is the power of the past to affect the present not always positively. Then there's the power of hope. Singing in her pure manner, McBroom chooses songs that, as she sees it, reiterate these constants. Undoubtedly, the prolific songwriting McBroom is still best known for 'The Rose,' which she reprises in a quite different version from her initial track: She's beautifully joined by Vince McGill. Of the 13 inclusions, she wrote nine, three with frequent collaborator Michele Brourman. She opens with Julie Gold's 'Southbound Train,' including a lyric about a damaged heart 'on the baggage rack.' Songwriter Gold is still best known for supplying as with McBroom's 'The Rose' the other Bette Midler signature song 'From a Distance. This anthem demonstrates Gold's plangent strengths. Of the other songs, only 'The Last Thing on my Mind' and 'The Twelfth of Never' are well-known, but McBroom's versions of the others suggests they all should be recognized as standards. Voices was produced in Nashville. (Vince McGill was probably close at hand). When singers go to Music City (see also k. d. lang), they tend to produce something that sounds unmistakably country maybe uptown country, but country all the same. There's nothing wrong with that, as this brilliant CD completely substantiates. David Finkle --The Huffington Post