Capitol Rec.
Orriel Smith : A Voice in the Wind -LP-(US,1963)***°'
Capitol Rec. Orriel Smith : A Voice forever in the Wind -Folk,Faith & Love Songs" (US,rec.2010)**+
You can feel there is already something different/unusual in Orriel’s Smith’s approach towards vocal interpretations back in 1963. It is because she had a well-educated background, being capable of singing opera and coloratura, instead she recorded a folk album. After a renewed interest in her music, especially after she appeared on the great “Fuzzy Felt Folk” Orriel decided to rerecord the idea of the early album, with a kind of part two, some 47 ! years later.
After the folk album, Orriel had appeared on television a few times, had been part of the Jimmy Joyce Singers and the Ray Conniff Singers and has worked with Dolly Parton. She also wrote "Lifetime Woman” by David Frizzell. Then she had a totally different project which went back to her coloratura capacities with a fun making project transforming songs and arias into a new singing form called “cluckoratura” or chicken-alike singing, which she later expanded to “catoratura” or cat-like singing, all of which showed once more Orriel’s very individual almost bizarre approach towards music grounded in her capacity and of course fun to do so.
Luckily I could still find a download of Orriel’s 1963 album, although it seems that the original LP can still be purchased rather cheaply second hand, now I was already able of hearing it, so that I had something to compare from where it all started.
Unfortunately the album never was re-released while it surely has all necessary capacities to be enjoyed even now. Orriel’s approach is clearly inspired by Joan Boaz, she takes her time to develop the song’s emotions, and succeeds to make them sound rich in emotion, especially in the high voice folk songs. There we hear certain classically-trained vibrations in her voice. The effect of this reveals an innocence and purity in doing so, at the same time in a subtle way you can hear this voice is different, in a subtle and grounded way this could easily turn into something more bizarre. In this album she does not keep her inspirations to the Appalachian folk, but ranges towards gospel-folk and blues, from which the blues tracks are less unusual than the folk, which still distinguishes her well enough from the much more roots based Joan Boaz to give an example. It really is a fine album, with covers only.
On the remake she continues indeed the interpretation of songs with a similar folk association. However this is no longer with this vague Joan Boaz association. It sounds a bit more Celtic, spacier and lonelier perhaps. With sparse arrangements you can hear a certain field of associations of some things she did afterwards, like a touch of country or so. Her voice sounds breathier, with some vibrations of aged tiredness in the lower registers, directing towards different areas from which I do not know if the song choice and approach all fits so perfectly with the qualities there are now present at this point. The breath of singing is lonelier, withdrawing from everything, keeping a certain charm intact. But the result is less successful compared to her first album.
