Thursday's Child

AMG Review of Thursday's Child

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

Eartha Kitt's third album, Down to Eartha, missed the charts in 1955, but RCA Victor Records tried again in 1956 with Thursday's Child, a typical collection that found the exotic arch-seductress crooning in multiple languages and multiple musical styles. Among the more notable selections were an English-language vocal version of the recent Nelson Riddle instrumental hit "Lisbon Antigua (In Old Lisbon)" and a rendition of "Lazy Afternoon" from the recent Broadway musical The Golden Apple. Inevitably, there were a couple of novelties to exploit Kitt's promiscuous gold-digger image, as she wooed millionaires and their money in "Just an Old-Fashioned Girl" and "If I Can't Take It with Me When I Go." There may not have been enough Americans still intrigued by Kitt to make Thursday's Child a domestic hit, but RCA may have been figuring that world-wide sales justified the effort; certainly, there seemed to be a songs for South American and European exploitation here, as well as North America. More important for the singer herself, the album provided a repertoire that would help make her an equally welcome nightclub entertainer in New York, Paris, West Berlin, and Rio de Janeiro.