(Vocal Jazz, Traditional Pop) Rosemary Clooney - Look My Way / Nice to Be Around - 2002, MP3, 320 kbps

Rosemary Clooney got her feet wet again as a recording artist in the mid-'70s after more than a decade away, with two genre exercises, neither of them very good. Look My Way (Tracks 1-12 on this two-fer compilation) was a 1976 Nashville session on which she was accompanied by country musicians like Buddy Emmons and Hargus "Pig" Robbins and sang songs associated with Jessi Colter, among others. For 1977's Nice to Be Around (Tracks 13-22), she went to England and, under the auspices of arranger/producer Del Newman, cut a soft rock collection of copycat versions of adult contemporary material associated with Paul Simon, Neil Sedaka, and James Taylor. Of course, neither of these approaches was a core style for the veteran pop singer, but she made the best of her opportunities while waiting for something better to happen. Something better did happen later in 1977 when she hooked up with Concord Records and began a new phase of her career.
William Ruhlmann, AMG