Bernadette Brown Love Life CD

Bernadette Brown has a fine voice that simply oozes with soul and feeling. It's a shame that it's full potential is by no means fulfilled on this album of fluff. This album is one cut above the easy listening, with track after track of songs burdened with a variety of synthesizer created instrumentation in tempos that rarely vary from one to another. It is simply hard to distinguish one track from another. It's all very highly polished and smooth without any edge or tension to it. As the CD moves on, there is a feeling that each cut is a bigger production and more ostentatious than the one preceding it. But despite this competition, the fullness of Brown's voice comes through. One of the cuts where she doesn't have to compete unfairly with the ersatz orchestration is on a reprise of "Ocean's Breath" where the full effect of her voice can be appreciated. One can only imagine what it could do with more substantial material than has been made available on this CD. Brown, as composer/arranger of virtually everything on the play list, must carry a large share of the responsibility for this production. It's not that the performances are bad, but just boring, which makes it good background for such things as reading. Perhaps next time Brown the vocalist will be separated from Brown the composer, and be given material to perform worthy of her vocal talent. ~ Dave Nathan

Debut;Smooth R & B

Recording information: 1999.

Arrangers: Hortencio Gomes; John Bauers; Bernadette Brown.

Personnel: Bernadette Brown (vocals, string synthesizer); Tommy Brown (vocals); Stephen Roane (guitar, acoustic guitar); Dave Chun (guitar, wah-wah guitar); Sonya Robinson (violin, viola); Dave Pietro (flute, alto saxophone); Gary Guzio (flute, flugelhorn); Jody Espina (alto saxophone); John Bauers (piano, keyboards, synthesizer, sound effects); Steve Roberts, Lloyd Mayers (piano); Hortencio Gomes (keyboards); Dave Lopez, David O Jones, Ricky Sebastian, Kiek Driscoll (drums); Cafe de Silva, Cafe Da Silva, Myra Casales (percussion); Mala Waldron, Sheila Baptista, Billy Adams, Ula Hedwig (background vocals).

Audio Mixer: Dave Kowalski.