The Best Of

Now let's see, who would I put in my top three female singers of all time? Hmmm.....Karen Carpenter (surely no one captures sweetness and melancholy to such exquisite effect), Tracey Thorn (er, for pretty much the same reasons really!) and, yes, Eddi Reader the brilliant Scottish singer/songwriter, formerly of the short-lived but much loved band Fairground Attraction. For over two decades Eddi has been ploughing a straight but fantastic furrow as one of the best solo singers out there.Whilst Eddi has a pretty strong following (I was at her London Barbican concert last year and there wasn't a seat left in the house), I sense she's still not nearly as well recognised nor appreciated as she should be. And yet she has produced album after album of astonishingly good pop/folk/jazz(ish) music as this retrospective of her lengthy career fulsomely demonstrates.We start with a couple of old Fairground Attraction numbers including the song most likely to be familiar to the casual listener 'Perfect' which surely by now must have paid off writer (and original Fairground Attraction member), Mark Nevin's mortgage.The remainder of the tracks are taken from Eddi's studio albums although I note with puzzlement and a little disappointment the absence of her fantastic glamorous big band cover of Gene Pitney's 'A Town Without Pity' (something to do with byzantine record contracts perhaps?).Anyhow, what's missing still does not detract from an album of beautiful melodic music. I hate to use a slightly cliched term but there is something undeniably etherial about some of Eddi's music - just have a listen to 'What You Do With What You've Got' a song from her very first solo album Mirmama. It's a haunting piece that few other singers could deliver in such an wonderfully atmospheric way.Other highlights? Too many to mention but 'Dolphins', 'Galileo', 'Dragonflies' and the 'Girl Who Fell in Love With the Moon' are all just simply delightful.But for me the outstanding track here is 'Semi Precious' from Eddi's 1996 album Candyfloss & Medicine. It's the sort of song that had Adele's management team gotten their world-dominating hands on it would now be a hit as big as, I dunno, 'Someone Like You' - yep, it's really that good (I've just checked it out on Youtube - the song has 830 views. It should be 830,000).So, what more can I say: buy it, buy it, buy it......Oh, I'm a bit of sucker for Rock Family tress - you know, singers/bands related to other singers/bands in someway, so in this spirit do check out the hardly-known-outside-of-some-bits-of-Scotland Trashcan Sinatras, to which I believe Eddi has a number of close connections. Great blimmin' band; fantastic flippin' music.

I remember seeing Eddi at the start of her career with Fairground Attraction at Colston Hall, Bristol in 1988, when Perfect was such a massive hit. They were a charming band, but she was a rather unusual lead vocalist, tall and a bit ungainly, and looked to be riding the crest of a wave as a one hit wonder. Well how wrong I was on that assumption, she now has over 30 years of live performance and many fine albums and collaborations under her belt.Her tours always sell out, she has a strong and loyal following , her later albums are always favourably reviewed, and she is now acknowledged as one of Scotland's finest female vocalists. She is still an exuberant character, more self assured and extrovert now, and tends to play and tour with an experienced set of classy support players, guaranteed to give a great show.This is a great value for money career overview on 2 discs with 30 tracks, starting with a couple of tracks fom those Fairground Attraction days, up to 2016. The music itself is fine, but the packaging and supporting information is rather lacking, hence the reduction of one star. There are no supporting lyrics reproduced for each song, and no details of which album each track came from. So if you particularly like and enjoy some songs, it will be a challenge to find out where you can hear them in their original setting.Normally with a retrospective best of collection there will be some liner notes from a journalist or fellow artist or the performer themselves setting everything in context, ,but all you get here is who wrote each song and for most (but not all of them0 the date it was released. Shoddy packaging and supporting information which could have been done so much better.Still her singing is strong, clear and true throughout, and it is a great value for money package. 10 of the tracks are written by one of my favourite songwriters, Boo Hewerdine, including a hit fairly early in her career, Patience of Angels, which is one of my favourites. She has regularly collaborated with Boo through her long career, and he is often in the touring band performing alongside her. Another strong trend is her interpretation of traditional folk songs, and she has specialised in Robbie Burns covers, producing whole albums of just his songs. A final observation is that on more recent albums she has tended to surround herself with a fairly sumptuous lush production ,very classy and smooth, a long way from the spontaneity and spark of her earlier work. She is now happily married to John Douglas who plays in her band and co-writes some of her more recent songs.In conclusion, a great VFM retrospective, 5 stars for the music on the double CDs, but frustratingly poor supporting information on lyrics, where the songs came from, and a career overview with context, only 2 stars for that element.

After hearing Dragonflies on its own I bought this album. Wonderful, a great listen.

This double cd is a fine collection of Eddi's career to date, from Fairground Attraction to her impressive solo career, even finding space for some of her lovely airs from Rabbie Burns. Throughout this collection, the quality of the sound production is immaculate: backing is sharp & crystal clear, allowing her soaring vocal space to demonstrate her remarkable range, in layers of gorgeous, heart-stopping tones.The only disappointment for me is that, especially for anyone new to this brilliant songbird, this collection provides no background about Eddi at all, no lyrics, and not even any running times for her songs. A bit more effort here would have been rewarded with the full 5 stars...

Great 1st disc. 2nd disc, as pictured, looks genuine but won't read on any player. Only given it 3 stars due to excellent music in disc 1

Great album proving the versatility of Eddie Reader.

Loved her voice since the first time I heard it back in the late 80s. Best of collections are always fraught with difficulty as they are bound to leave off someone's favourites. I would have loved All or Nothing, The Glasgow Barrowlands, Bonnie Bessies and something from the Driftwood album, but it still doesn't detract from this marvellous body of work from one of the finest voices.

Currently listening to and enjoying.