Carole Bayer Sager/...Too/Sometimes Late at Night * by Carole Bayer Sager (CD, 2012)

Raven

9398800035621

25050136060

Carole Bayer Sager

CD

2012

Carole Bayer Sager/...Too/Sometimes Late at Night *

112 mins 15 seconds

Rock

Liner Note Author: Ian McFarlane. Raven's 2012 set combines three Carole Bayer Sager albums from the late '70s and early '80s onto two CDs: her eponymous 1977 debut, 1978's ...Too, and 1981's Sometimes Late at Night. Sager wasn't so much a singer/songwriter as a lyricist, collaborating with a variety of writers. During this period, it was often her then-husband Burt Bacharach but Sager worked with a variety of other name composers, names who often were closer to a Broadway axis than the pop charts, such as Peter Allen and Marvin Hamlisch, both of whom have a heavy presence on her debut. Apart from the disco pander of "Don't Wish Too Hard," that record is pretty straight-laced, but ...Too opens things up thanks to the nice Doobie Brothers homage "It's the Falling in Love," a few collaborations with Melissa Manchester ("Peace in My Heart" is a lovely bit of soft rock), and an unexpected Alice Cooper in balladry mode on "Shadows," plus the appealingly diluted disco of "I Don't Wanna Dance No More." It's a step up from the debut and it's considerably livelier than the somnolent soft rock of Sometimes Late at Night. Produced and co-written largely with Bacharach and David Foster -- Neil Diamond swoops in for "On the Way to the Sky" and Michael Jackson drops by for "Just Friends" -- this after-hours affair is so soft and smooth it seems constructed solely for the purpose of inducing drowsiness. A couple of cuts have a pulse -- "Somebody's Been Lying," the title track, "Easy to Love Again" -- but this winds up as a final illustration that Sager had difficulty translating her songwriting skills to a charismatic record. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Koch (USA)

Stereo

2

USA