Clare Teal - Get Happy (2008)

When Yorkshire-born singer Clare Teal first surfaced six years back, she sounded like an artist who could deliver a very safe jazz and classic-pop repertoire with a distinctive fizz that came from both technical sophistication and an unequivocal love of the material. Teal grew up fantasising she was Ginger Rogers whirling into the arms of Fred Astaire around the aisles of Keighley shopping centre when she was out with her mum - and that enduring devotion to swing, standards and lyrics about a rosily simplified life remains central to her appeal.
This set marks Teal's move to Universal's W14 imprint (Alison Moyet and Siouxsie Sioux are labelmates), and, of course, it's all tailor-made Michael Parkinson material. Teal's powerful jazz credentials are more to the fore on this album, however, notably in her light-stepping swing over a fast bass-walk on Cheek to Cheek, the Ella Fitzgerald scat-jam at the end, and the Cab Calloway hi-de-ho references in the finale of Moondance. Her clarity and controlled power allow her to make the much-travelled pop ballads Love Hurts and Breaking Up Is Hard to Do her own, but in replacing the sense of desolation in Love for Sale with a kind of plain-speaking resignation, she diminishes its meaning. Some may find many of the other lyrics too cheesy to be delivered without irony, and the Radio 2 vibe too pervasive. But, as always with Teal, she sounds as if she's loving every moment, and for many that will be infectious.