Cilla Black - Beginnings... (Greatest Hits & New Songs) (2003)

This CD is one of those odd hybrid releases, mixing new and old material, that could only come properly from an artist of Cilla Black's longevity. The ten classic hits fit surprisingly well alongside the new recordings (one of them a 2003-vintage re-recording of one of those hits), mostly because Black still has a voice and the best instincts on how to use it, 40 years after she started singing professionally. Her renditions of "Kiss You All Over" and "If You Could Read My Mind" aren't about to make anyone forget the established hit versions of either song, but neither do they do any violence to Black's considerable reputation as a pop/rock singer. And a lot of the new material belongs in these surroundings: her her playful, torch song-style rendition of "Let There Be Love," her powerful version of "Beautiful Goodbye," and, most of all, the old Ringo Starr hit "Photograph," which she jumps into head first at her most soulful. But the highlight has to be the CD's closing track, a gorgeous, seductive nearly five-minute reinterpretation of "Anyone Who Had a Heart" that gives the singer a chance to stretch out. The CD also contains an uncredited 21st track, a remix of "Step Inside Love." The sound on the vintage tracks is excellent, but that's been true of most of Black's reissues since the mid-'90s. It's the new songs, at least a half-dozen of them, that make this CD unusual and special, for those whose interest in Black transcends nostalgia.~Bruce Eder