Tracks: 1. Live Out Loud (Andrew Lippa)
2. From a Distance (Julie Gold)
3. All the Gold in California (Larry Gatlin)
4. The Long Cold Fall (Rick Jensen)
5. Nowhere to Go But Up (Maury Yeston)
6. How Could I Ever Know? (Lucy Simon)
7. If I Sing (David Shire & Richard Maltby, Jr.)
8. The Sweetest of Nights and the Finest of Days (Shelly Markham)
9. Somebody's Out There (Emily Bindiger)
10. Tear It Up and Throw It Away (Jeff Marx & Robert Lopez)
11. Daddy's Girl (Jamie deRoy & Lanny Meyers)
12. Old Friend (Nancy Ford & Gretchen Cryer)
13. For Good (Stephen Schwartz
Posted 2007-08-05 20:52:48: Amazon.com Editoral Review: Jamie DeRoy has long enjoyed a great reputation for her support of cabaret artists, including a television show and accompanying series of recordings called Jamie DeRoy and Friends. Six years in the making, If I Sing: The Songwriters' Album is also attributed to DeRoy and friends, but there's a difference. As the title indicates, the performers are all performing their own songs, and the roster encompasses Broadway, cabaret, and pop. (Andrew Lippa, Maury Yeston, Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman, Stephen Schwartz) to pop. Sure, there are more polished and better known recordings of Julie Gold's "From a Distance," Stephen Schwartz's "For Good," and Nancy Ford and Gretchen Cryer's "Old Friend," but there's something appealing about the raw, honest sound of these singers with simple piano or chamber accompaniment. And some of the songs--such as David Shire and Richard Maltby Jr.'s "If I Sing"--have a personal nature that makes them especially compelling. If nothing else, these modern artists are significantly better than the songwriter demos from the '50s and '60s Broadway fans have probably heard as CD bonus tracks. There are also some discoveries: Maury Yeston's "Nowhere to Go But Up" is from his unproduced musical Ramayana, and Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez's "Tear It Up and Throw It Away" is a funny song cut from Avenue Q. --David Horiuchi
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