13.01.2008.
Annie Haslam's Renaissance - Blessing in Disguise (1994) (@128
(Review from nlightsweb.com, allmusic.com)
Singing better than she believed she had ever done before, Annie survived the breast cancer she was treated for in 1993 and then got back into business with a band called Annie Haslam's Renaissance. She wrote poems and Tony Visconti put them to music and likens it to how Thatcher and Dunford "used to work in the old days." Visconti also co-wrote six of the tracks.
The album resulting from the collaboration is entitled Blessing In Disguise. Released in 1994, it has fourteen songs and spans the entire range of Annie's musical abilities including tracks with a texture reminiscent of Renaissance's earlier work and those that go on beyond where the band left off. Both Betty Thatcher-Newsinger and Michael Dunford contributed to Blessing In Disguise in co-writing "Love Lies, Love Dies" also performed on The Other Woman by Dunford and another vocalist. Betty Thatcher-Newsinger also wrote lyrics for "The Sweetest Kiss."
The song "Love Lies, Love Dies" uses essentially the same music as the earlier "Dreamaker" released on 1997's Songs From Renaissance Days, making it another example of songs the artists have performed the same melody with multiple sets of lyrics. The music was used again in Michael Dunford's Scheherazade musical with lyrics by Jude Alderson in the song "A Love So Pure." Another pair is "Save Us All" from Still Life and "Cold Is Being" from Turn Of The Cards which both use Albinoni's "Adagio Giazotto" as their musical foundation.
Annie Haslam's Renaissance, began the phenomenon of "dueling Renaissances" that took place in the 1990s, Michael Dunford having started his own version of the group, and the surviving members of the original line-up also claiming the name -- all astonishing for a band that seldom, if ever, charted any records in any notable way, and also unfortunate, because it diverted attention from each artist's work.
Blessing in Disguise is one of Haslam's most engaging and accessible records -- all of it is on the arty, romantic side of pop/rock, in a similar vein to Renaissance, but it's also distinctly different, in that the singer sacrifices some of her voice's crystalline purity and a little bit of her range in favor of a warmer, more expressive sound.
The whole album marks a definite advancement from Haslam's earlier work -- instead of "Renaissance-lite", it's a solid and weighty solo achievement.
Track List :
01. Blessing In Disguise
02. Pool Of Tears
03. Love Lies, Love Dies
04. Can't Turn The Night Off
05. In Another Life
06. Raindrops And Leaves
07. Whisper From Marseilles
08. I Light This Candle
09. What He Seeks
10. See This Through Your Eye
11. The Sweetist Kiss
12. The Children (Of Medellin)
13. A New Life
14. After The Oceans Are Gone
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Original Post Date : 10 Feb 2007 | 3:48 AM
