Bette Midler

She's not the greatest singer ever, but she's a darn good one. She isn't the greatest actress ever, but she's a darn good one. She's not the greatest comedienne either, but she's, again, a darn good one. I'll leave her acting and comedic performances to one with more knowledge of those things. She's not the easiest singer to appreciate, but let's give it a try.

She started so strong that it almost set the stage for mid-career problems. Her first two, The Devine Miss M 1972 and Bette Midler 1973 set up her entire career. Everything was on - her love of female harmonies expressed through the Andrews Sisters and the Ronettes, her heart-on-the-sleeve delivery of a big ballad, and a touch of rock and roll. These were not only her first records, but they were also her best.

The three that followed that fine pair (Songs for the New Depression 1976, Broken Blossom 1977, and Thighs and Whispers 1979) were, for lack of a better word, disappointing. They don't figure prominently on her hits compilations. But her soundtrack to The Rose 1979 held her solid versions of When A Man Loves A Woman and Stay With Me, both of which, along with the title track, would feature in her live performances and compilations. Two uneven live records failed to capture her energetic live shows. Even her awful No Frills 1983, which suffered from everything wrong with the eighties, at least held her solid versions of the Stones' Beast of Burden and Marshall Crenshaw's Favorite Waste of Time, a couple of her better rockers.

Between 1988 and 1993 she did three more soundtracks for movies in which she starred, and of course Beaches 1988 includes her biggest hit Wind Beneath My Wings. Some People's Lives 1990 continued her big ballad period, and is one of her better records. Arif Mardin did an excellent job with a sympathetic production that let Midler shine.

As for big hit records that make a lot of money, her ballads The Wind Beneath My Wings, The Rose, and From A Distance, made her a household name, and she milked that big ballad thing for a while on her album releases. But that didn't really help her work between 1995 and 2000. Bette of Roses 1995 at least had To Deserve You, Bathhouse Betty 1998 has a nice Song of Bernadette, and I Sold My Heart To The Junkman and One Monkey Don't Stop No Show, both classics. Bette 2000 included a decent cover of Kirsty MacColl's In These Shoes and an OK Just My Imagination. 

I forgot to mention Barry Manilow earlier. He was responsible for much/most of Bette's first two records. He was her pianist in her early days, and his work with Midler is his finest contribution to recorded music. Both Bette Midler Sings The Rosemary Clooney Songbook 2003 and Bette Midler Sings The Peggy Lee Songbook 2005 benefit from Manilow's production and arrangement work. Both are solid tributes, and Midler sounds good fronting a big band. 

Cool Yule 2006 is a Christmas record. As those things go, it's fine. 

But then in 2014 Bette released It's The Girls!.  A remarkable record that hearkens back to her earliest work in a super good way. It's all girl groups, but not just from the sixties. There''s Teach Me Tonight (from 1956) and Waterfalls (from 1995) and plenty of sixties in between. It is just about as perfect a record as we could expect from Bette Midler in 2014.

There's a bunch of compilations out there, and surprisingly, they don't all cover the same ground. For a good overview and all the essentials, Experience The Divine: Greatest Hits 1993 is the one, and the single disc Jackpot! The Best of Bette 2008 comes close, but omits a few choice moments. The more recent Memories of You 2010 (standards) and A Gift of Love 2015 (ballads) are more narrowly focused and not really hits collections. 

The first two and It's The Girls! are her best records, and Experience The Divine captures pretty much all the career highlights, including her wonderful One For My Baby (And One More For The Road) that she serenaded Johnny Carson with on his last show.