Bette Midler It's The Girls! 2014

Bette Midler is a fine vocal talent that has been wasted on middling material and just plain wrong production for much of her career. That hasn't stopped her from winning Grammy's and having big hit singles, but it has made much of her material come off as product, and pretty standard product at that. Of course, things got started in fine style with her stellar 1972 debut, The Divine Miss M. But the soundtrack work, and much of Arif Mardin's later productions left me wanting. I came to think of her as an actor (and a darn good one) as much as a singer. Then there was that last Carson show when she serenaded him with One For The Road. I mean, you almost have to love her even if her recordings seemed so, I don't know, schlocky.

What made The Divine Miss M so great were the songs, many of which would fit right in with this new recording. There were girl group sounds all over Miss M, with Chapel Of Love and Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. And there wasn't any padding on the record.

Well, I'll save you any suspense and just tell you that Bette Midler has finally made The Divine Miss M Part 2. It is a delight to hear Midler tackle these fabulous, and mostly true to the original, girl group classics. The song selection is spot on, with plenty of obvious choices, but also some rarities. When the songs get new arrangements, they're really great choices, like the slow, heartfelt version of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. Heartfelt is a good choice of words, really, because Midler sounds more invested in this material than she ever has sounded. Wow.

Be My Baby, One Fine Day, Tell Him, Baby It's You, He's Sure The Boy I Love, You Can't Hurry Love, all done just different enough from their sixties originals to sound fresh. The tracks from the forties "original" girl groups are particularly fine, with The DeCastro Sister's close harmony version of Teach Me Tonight just breathtakingly beautiful.

I didn't really care much if there was ever going to be another great Bette Midler recording, and I certainly didn't expect it. What a lovely surprise!