Drg
2004
If We Only Have Love
About This Album
As the album's title, drawn from a song used in Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, suggests, Broadway and nightclub singer Karen Akers explores the impact of love in her fifth album for DRG Records, which, as usual, consists of show tunes. "Patterns," written by David Shire and Richard Maltby, Jr. for their musical Baby but not introduced until their anthology revue Closer Than Ever, serves as an introduction to the subject. "A Sleepin' Bee," Harold Arlen and Truman Capote's ballad from House of Flowers, discusses how to recognize love. "Try to Remember," Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones' standard from The Fantasticks, takes a broad, philosophical view. But then Akers turns more specific in "My Childhood," a song heard in later productions of Jacques Brel..., and becomes ironic in Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" from A Little Night Music. The heart of the album finds her reprising a trio of songs from Nine, a show in which she starred (made timely by a 2003 revival) as the wife of a straying film director. But the thematic core of the disc may be her medley of "I Know Him So Well" and "Anthem" from Chess.
Track List (try tracks 2,5 and 7)

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