Sleeping Gypsy
Posted over 2 years ago
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Lady Wants to Know
http://michaelfranks.com/Check out the website for a great journal/blog about what's been going on in this fellow's life.Here's some of his music at last.fm:http://www.last.fm/music/Michael+FranksAnd here's the Daily OM Music review of the album.May 1, 2007Sleeping GypsyMichael Franks 1977"Born in La Jolla, California, Michael Franks became one of America's most popular smooth-jazz vocalists by the late 1970s. The young singer-songwriter had a background in folk rock, but while performing music as a sideline during university studies in Los Angeles, he gravitated toward a restrained, romantic musical style. His 1976 sophomore album, The Art of Tea, enjoyed considerable success and enabled Franks to chart his own course with his follow-up (and career highlight), Sleeping Gypsy. Enamored with the hushed ambience of Brazilian bossa nova, Franks crafted an album that combines sleek samba rhythms, soft slithering jazz, and his own sly, lyrical voice.Sleeping Gypsy begins with the slipping, sliding sounds of "Lady Wants to Know." Guitars glow, keyboards caress, and a saxophone cuts thick as leather over light, funky percussion. In his relaxed, cool tenor, Franks evokes moonlit nights of romance so perfect and delicate you can hardly risk breathing to upset the balance: "Daddy's just like Coltrane / Baby's just like Miles / Lady's just like heaven / When she smiles." But despite his dreamy romanticism, Franks maintains a slight cynicism in his songs that keeps them honest. "In the Eye of the Storm" builds with a slow, smoky strut and splashes of phosphorescent keys as Franks balances sweet reveries with visions of reality. "I hear from my ex," he whispers, "On the back of my checks." Orchestration swells distantly like the fantasies life keeps at arm's length.The Brazilian influence can best be heard on tracks like "Antonio's Song (The Rainbow)," written for bossa nova pioneer Antonio Carlos Jobim. A shifting, lilting samba rhythm provides the track's fluid backbone as flute whistles and quiet piano adds glimpses of color. The melody moves simply, naturally, pleasingly, and in the chorus Franks demonstrates his easy way with elegant lyrical imagery: "You sing the song / Forgotten for so long / You let the music flow / Like light into the rainbow." The sound of the track recalls warm island nights with the breeze wafting through palm trees in the sky. Like the album as a whole, it conjures a hypnotic mood of peace and romance, a place so relaxed it must be home."
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