Since her untimely death in February this year, a lot of stuff has been written and said about this truly magnificent 60´s pop icon. Much of it is praise for the fabulous singer she was, but she also gets much kudos for her songwriting and also her later engagement in the LGBT movement.
The title of her 1972 album pictured below has taken on another meaning now that Lesley is no longer on this earth….
Her 1972 album, “Someplace Else Now”
When the album came out in 1972, the title had another meaning of course; it was a signal that Lesley had put her sunny girl-group style of pop behind her, and was heading in a new direction….
Artistically, it bears little resemble to her sixties material, but it more than shows that she had artistically grown! If the pop singer she was in the 60s was a girl, this album showed off Lesley – the grown woman.
Coming a year after Carole King´s “Tapestry” – the ALL-encompassing charter on how to create a very good singer-songwriter album, Lesley´s 1972 output is of course touched by the influence of Queen Carole The King….
Throwing away any and all of the themes that her 60´s output dealt with (boys, lollipops, rainbows, kisses, Judy, young love, love gone bad, hoping to be loved by “him” etc) – “Someplace Else Now” contains a Lesley hitherto unknown to the public: the socially aware woman who damn well knows rainbows and kisses are of no use in every day life in 1972 America.
Getting to show off several new aspects of her voice while handling some really demanding lyrics, this album should maybe be heralded as the birth of Lesley Gore – the singer (as opposed to pop singer, 60´s style!)
Songs like “She Said That” (the albums lead-off single) and the heart wrenching “Out Of Love” (study those lyrics will you….) are maybe the two best songs here, but the other ten are great also. Lesley made a fabulous record at the right time, but tough competition from La King herself, and the fact that not many of Lesley´s fans from the previous decade understood what she was about at this point all contributed to the fact that the album soon fell into obscurity….
So, you may wonder, why am I writing about this long forgotten 70´s album now…?
It´s out on CD now! For the first time in 43 years, you can buy this album again! And it is certainly one that is long overdue for re-release too!
Whenever a popular singer dies, record companies usually mine their vaults to get a “new” album out. Thankfully, after Lesley´s passing they chose to haul this one up from the basement instead of making yet another “best of” collection. I certainly hope this will lead to a new release also for her “Love Me By Name” album that came out some years later….
Lesley Gore´s music is too good and too valuable to be kept from the public – and I am all too happy to finally have this one out on CD! That view is shared by millions of Lesley-fans around the world, and I know you will treat yourself to this one – now you better be “Off & Running” (pardon the pun – I couldn´t resist!) to the nearest record store. This re-release is not to be missed!
Lesley, going somewhere – in the late 1960´s
stianeriksen 