Drg
1993
Close As Pages In A Book
About This Album
On her seventh solo album, former Broadway star Barbara Cook finally found a home on her fifth label, show-music-friendly DRG Records. MCA Classics had released her celebrated previous LP, 1988's Disney Album, but that proved to be a one-off project. DRG and producer Hugh Fordin, however, knew what to do with Cook, which was, essentially, to let her do what she did best, sing show music. Close as Pages in a Book was a songbook tribute to lyricist Dorothy Fields, a songwriter not much previously recognized, both because she wrote only words, not music (the composers always get more attention), and because she was a girl in what was very much a boys' club. But Fields had an extensive career writing for stage and screen, and Cook's selection of 13 songs gives a sense of breadth. The singer's strengths lean toward the expression of sincere romantic feeling, and she wisely looks for Fields lyrics that support that tone. Songs like the title tune, "Make the Man Love Me," and "The Way You Look Tonight" (a duet with Tommy Tune) are right up her street, and she also gets a lot out of more buoyant material such as "I Can't Give You Anything but Love," "I'm in the Mood for Love," and even "Bojangles of Harlem.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,7,8 and 9)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.