Starting on the top left: The Cinematic Orchestra, Brooke Fraser, Azure Ray, Love, Allison Moorer (in the middle), Andy Gibb, Bebel Gilberto, Crash Test Dummies, and Billie Eilish.
Today on Music Sunday, a chill 9-song Spotify playlist of some of my favourite laid-back songs, spanning the years from 1967 (that’d be the American group Love’s Alone Again Or, written by band member Bryan MacLean) right up until present day, with Billie Eilish’s, I Love You.
The various artists span the globe, from New Zealand singer-songwriter Brooke Fraser — with whom I became acquainted one autumn day in 1997 when walking into a neighbourhood consignment clothing store — where, of course, I purchased a great new sweater, the young woman behind the counter a recent Kiwi emigré, who was more than happy to share her love of Ms. Fraser’s music with me; Brazil’s Bebel Gilberto, singing a song originally recorded by her then 24-year-old step-mother Astrud, in 1965; plus a lo-fi jazz song from Britain’s The Cinematic Orchestra, featuring Québéçois singer-songwriter Patrick Watson on vocals; a song by Australia’s Andy Gibb; and music from Alison Moorer, raised in the southern U.S., which is where Azure Ray’s Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor hail from; and, from Canada, the Winnipeg-based Crash Test Dummies, Brad Roberts on vocals; and last but not least, the incomparable chanteuse, Billie Eilish.
