LaVern (album)

LaVern
Studio album by LaVern Baker
Released	1956 (1956)
Recorded	October 19, 1956 (second half of album)
Studio	New York City, New York, United States (second half of album)
Genre	Rhythm and blues[1]
Length	30:56
Language	English
Label	Atlantic
LaVern Baker chronology
LaVern (1956) LaVern Baker (1957)

LaVern is the debut studio album from American rhythm and blues singer LaVern Baker, released by Atlantic Records in 1956.

Reception

Editors at AllMusic rated this release 3 out of 5 stars.[2] A 1998 repackaging of this with 1958's LaVern Baker received 4.5 out of 5 stars, with critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing that "both records are excellent" and recommending it to listeners because it collects hard-to-find tracks, but complains that "a couple of cuts fall a little flat" and "the remastering and packaging aren't quite up to the standard of the music itself".[3] In the 2004 edition of The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, the two-album compilation was rated 4.5 out of 5 stars and the editors write that this material features Baker as a "gut-bucket R&B singer" that combines blues and pop music.[1]

Track listing

1. "Lots and Lots of Love" (LaVern Baker) – 2:26
2. "Of Course I Do" (Chuck Willis) – 2:51
3. "You’ll Be Crying" (Vincent Corso) – 2:58
4. "Miracles" (Jerry Samuels) – 2:46
5. "I’m in a Crying Mood" (Fletcher Henderson and Willmette Ward) – 2:50
6. "Mine All Mine" (Bessie Smith) – 2:14
7. "Harbor Lights" (Gordon Kennedy, Jimmy Kennedy, and Hugh Williams) – 2:20
8. "I’ll Never Be Free" (Bennie Benjamin and George David Weiss) – 2:20
9. "Romance in the Dark" (Lillian "Lil" Green) – 3:00
10. "Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool" (Lionel Hampton) – 2:09
11. "How Long Will It Be" – 2:42
12. "Fool That I Am" (Floyd Hunt) – 2:20

Personnel

• LaVern Baker – vocals
• Paul Ackerman – liner notes
• Tom Dowd – engineering
• Ray Ellis – arrangement and conducting on second half of album
• Ahmet Ertegun – supervision
• Marvin Israel – cover design
• Jerry Schatzberg – photography
• Jerry Wexler – supervision
• Unnamed session musicians playing bass guitar, drums, guitar, piano, and saxophone

See also

• List of 1956 albums

References

1. Hoard, Christian David; Brackett, Nathan, eds. (2004). "LaVern Baker". The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Simon & Schuster. pp. 39–41. ISBN 9780743201698.
2. "LaVern Baker – LaVern". AllMusic. RhythmOne. n.d. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
3. Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (n.d.). "LaVern Baker – LaVern/LaVern Baker". AllMusic. RhythmOne. Retrieved August 8, 2023.

External links

• LaVern at Discogs (list of releases)
• LaVern at MusicBrainz (list of releases)