Silvia Fleming - Love For Christmas



Silvia Fleming has been surrounded by music all her life. That's not surprising considering she had a mother who was a professional singer and a father who was an electronics engineer and a music manager for his wife.

Needless to say, her mother's influence instilled a deep love of Big Band tunes, jazz, and all of the great American standards by George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen, and Irving Berlin. Fleming combined her love of singing with the study of classical piano and received a B.A. in Music Education from California State University, Fullerton.

Last November, Fleming released this album which got a tremendous review from our friends at Christmasreviews.com:

"Silvia Fleming has one of those honey-sweet voices that are just made for singing jazzy, romantic easy listening pop tunes. And with occasional support from the great Sam Levine on alto sax, she is able to deliver a sound that supports the romantic aspirations of 'Love for Christmas'.

"Although Ms. Fleming is primarily striking a romantic pose, she delves more into sacred music here than one might expect. I particularly enjoyed her sweet and reverent More Than A Child. The Joy of Christmas was also quite quite lovely. Though her voice is a bit more sultry, these renditions are reminiscent of Karen Carpenter, and fans of Carpenter will most likely enjoy Silvia Fleming's 'Love For Christmas'."

A voice of reminiscent of Karen Carpenter? Oooooo...

TRACK REVIEWS:

1.) Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Silvia's voice is rich and mellow (like Karen's) and the longing in her voice suits the song's mood perfectly.

2.) Christmas Time is Here
With a great arrangement by Tim Hayden and another dose of Fleming gives this Vince Guaraldi chestnut a new spin that I enjoyed.

3.) Love for Christmas
The title track was written in 1998 by two Caroles (King & Bayer Sager) and recorded for King's 2007 deluxe album. The message is timely in this economically depressed season.

4.) Santa Baby
Silvia won't make you forget Eartha Kitt but she'll definitely hold your attention with this Christmas classic.

5.) The Other Side of Christmas
Unique original Christmas song (written by Tim Hayden) that reminds us about the secular side of Christmas intruding on the real meaning of Christmas. Enjoyed this one quite a bit.

6.) In a Lowly Manger Sleeping
Lovely reworking of this standard Christmas carol. Her voice gets more rich and mellow as I continue to listen.

7.) I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
If only more artists would make standard Christmas carols like this more accessible... wonderful rendition.

8.) More Than a Child
Different arrangement showcases Fleming's vocal attributes to a "T".

9.) My Grown Up Christmas List
CONFESSION: I've never been a fan of this song (too adult contemporary for me). Silvia does a great job but I couldn't warm up to it.

10.) The Joy of Christmas
WOW! We need more original songs like this - the Christmas songbook needs new blood! Very, very nice!

11.) What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?
Any version of any Christmas song that adds the intro gets an extra star from me. This is exquisite - my favorite track on the album.


I must admit, the review from Christmasreviews.com made me think of Karen Carpenter quite a bit when I listened. However, if I hadn't read that first before listening, I would have declared the second coming of Karen Carpenter.

Fleming has a wonderful Christmas album here and should you want a copy for yourself, CD Baby has it for sale or you can head over to Silvia's website to listen to samples from this album and learn more about her.

Thanks for the CD!


Capt

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Santastic II - Clausome!

Image
Welcome to Mash-up Saturday! Today we look at four different Christmas online comps that feature the handy work of DJs and mixers from around the world to create brand new takes on your favorite Christmas music. For those not wise in the ways of the mash-up, this phenomenon may have gotten its start way back in the classical days. Composers used to rework other compositions and used the term "variations on a theme by..." Fast forward to the 1960s. Dickie Goodman was breaking new ground with his break-in records. A gent by the name of John Oswald began experimenting with fusing two pieces of music using tape and scissors. The BBC TV show " I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue " featured a segment entitled "One Song To The Tune Of Another" that featured crude forms of the mash-up. In the 1970s, Frank Zappa began picking out basslines and other samples from music into his own. Club and disco DJs began mastering the art of the mix board. A company named
Read more

2001 Playlist

The 2001 playlist: 1.) 2001 intro My usual intro with the Flat Duo Jets on "Jingle Bells" mixed together with " Also Sprach Zarathustra ". 2.) Monty Python - Christmas In Heaven I waited years to use this one... it fits perfectly leading off the CD. 3.) Wayne Newton - Jingle Bell Hustle At the time, I thought this was the worst Christmas disco song ever (see 2008 below). 4.) Casey Kasem - American Top 40 Christmas bumper (No. 3) Found on Napster (the pre-legal days) from one of Casey's old radio programs. 5.) Dale Monty & The 2x2's - The Lil' Endless Summer Boy Take a surf guitar version of "Little Drummer Boy" and "Wipeout". You get this track. 6.) The Surfaris - A Surfer's Christmas List The same group who originally did "Wipeout"! Great Christmas surf track. 7.) Sleepless in Seattle - Meg Ryan listening to Christmas radio "Coming up, 'Jingle Bells' backwards!"
Read more

A Christmas Yuleblog Sampler - 2011

Image
Merry Christmas! We've had quite a year here - digitizing all of our Christmas music, a radio show , and remastering yuleblog samplers past.  But I can't complain.   Taking the nine months to get every album and MP3 onto my hard drive (and an external hard drive for backup) was the best decision I may have made in my Christmas life.  To have every song at my fingertips saves me time and led to discoveries of songs I never knew I had.  I thought that what the CD was supposed to do but that only shows you how far in the past I was living. The radio show was very satisfying.  The folks at the radio station were very supportive and thrilled with the end results.  Will it happen again next year?  I'm hopeful but only time will tell.  Lots of things are in store at the station...  Okay... enough about you Capt...  where's the samplers? During a break in digitizing in June, I went back and remastered the Yuleblog Samplers from 2008 and 2009.  Every 45
Read more