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Susannah McCorkle

Born in 1946, in Berkeley, CA. Education: Bachelor's degree in Italian literature from the University of California, Berkeley. Addresses: Record company—Concord Records, Inc., P.O. Box 845, Concord, CA 94522; Bookings—c/o Anne Jeffreys or Andrew Lipman, Susannah McCorkle Music, 41 W. 86th Street, #16C, New York, NY 10024, Phone: (925) 682-6770; (212) 877-5918 Fax: (925) 682-3508 E-mail: Email—[email protected]. Though not a household name in America, jazz-pop vocalist Susannah McCorkle has released 17 albums during her 20-year career which have earned international critical acclaim. McCorkle's repertoire of over 3,000 songs has helped keep the music of such songwriters/composers as George Gershwin, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Johnny Mercer alive in cabarets and on concert stages around the world. For a person whose original intention was to be a simultaneous language interpreter for the Common Market in Brussels, utilizing her skills in German, Spanish, French, and Italian, McCorkle instead decided to begin a singing career and move to London. McCorkle discovered jazz for the first time after moving to Europe in 1970. The American singer, Billie Holiday, made a particularly strong impact on McCorkle. When she heard the recordings of the blues and jazz giant, McCorkle was inspired enough to follow her own dream of singing. McCorkle grew up on top 40 hits and Broadway show tunes, but it would be the American jazz standards that would eventually take her to the top of the charts. Susannah McCorkle was born in Berkeley, California, in 1946. She received a Bachelor's degree in Italian literature and studied language in Mexico, France, Italy, and Germany. When she decided to head to London to try a career in music, McCorkle was also well on her way to becoming a prolific writer. Her fiction has been published in Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan, and the O. Henry Book of Prize Short Stories. Her non-fiction includes articles published in the New York Times Magazine, and American Heritage. Some of those articles include 10,000 word pieces on such people as singer and actress Ethel Waters, legendary American blues singer Bessie Smith, and composer Irving Berlin. McCorkle also wrote English translation versions of countless Brazilian, French, and Italian songs, including those of Brazilian musician Antonio Carlos Jobim. In addition, McCorkle writes all of her own shows, including her own anecdotes about the songwriters and songs she performed. In a review of her cabaret show in New York in June of 1998, Stephen Holden of the New York Times made the observation that her, "sweet, smoky voice and insinuating delivery suggest Billie Holiday filtered through Julie London by way of Lee Wiley, finds a common strain of erotic longing in both songwriters." Her interpretation of such composers as Gershwin and Jobim, Holden noted, "belonged to different nationalities and generations," were celebrated with "her crisply informative biographical asides," he said, calling attention to her studied performance, both in song and as a writer.

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178
Album Review

Susannah McCorkle: Ballad Essentials

Read "Ballad Essentials" reviewed by Dave Nathan


Susannah McCorkle is the latest entry in Concord Jazz's Ballad Essentials series, and certainly is one of the most exceptional entries. Few singers of our generation or any had a way with a set of lyrics as McCorkle. She has the ability to brighten and ventilate even the most tired of tunes. Fortunately her taste in selecting her play list was so impeccable, she could devote her singing efforts to her inimitable, highly personalized interpretations which, when coupled with unsurpassed ...

136
Album Review

Susannah McCorkle: Hearts And Minds

Read "Hearts And Minds" reviewed by Jim Santella


Susannah McCorkle put together her 15th Concord album as a program for both lovers and thinkers. But aren’t those two paradigms mutually exclusive? Where’s the common ground?

The singer’s convincing performance makes it clear that good songwriters provide some of both. Dave Frishberg’s “My Attorney Bernie" appeals to our insightful side, while George & Ira Gershwin’s “Our Love Is Here to Stay" reaches in that other direction. Similarly, many songs by Rodgers & Hammerstein or Van Heusen & Burke can ...

123
Album Review

Susannah McCorkle: Hearts & Minds

Read "Hearts & Minds" reviewed by Mathew Bahl


Listening to Hearts & Minds, it occurred to me that Susannah McCorkle very well might inherit the mantle of Champion of the Great American Songbook currently worn by Tony Bennett. Like Mr. Bennett, Ms. McCorkle believes that the standard repertoire is a living, breathing and, most importantly, ever expanding body of music that has something profound to say to adults in the 21st Century, and on Hearts & Minds, she makes a convincing argument for that position.

Hearts & Minds ...

170
Album Review

Susannah McCorkle: From Broken Hearts To Blue Skies

Read "From Broken Hearts To Blue Skies" reviewed by Jim Santella


From a moody “laugh all your sorrows away" with its late night lounge setup, to “never saw things goin’ so right" with its energetic trumpet and alto saxophone interludes, Susannah McCorkle has put together another eclectic session from the American popular songbook. This is her seventeenth album, following From Broadway To Bebop and From Bessie To Brazil. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in Italian literature, McCorkle studied languages in Mexico, France, Germany, and ...

347
Album Review

Susannah McCorkle: From Broken Hearts to Blue Skies

Read "From Broken Hearts to Blue Skies" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Susannah McCorkle, who has been devoting her albums of late to the works of specific composers (Gershwin, Porter, Berlin), broadens the horizon on her 17th recording, exploring the many facets of love, happiness and heartbreak through the music and lyrics of writers as disparate as Strayhorn/Ellington, Django Reinhardt, Henry Mancini/Johnny Mercer, Antonio Carlos Jobim, David Shire/Richard Maltby Jr. and Jerome Kern/Buddy DeSylva. McCorkle has some good–natured fun with Dave Frishberg’s clever entreaty, “I Want to Be a Sideman” (sideperson?), pays ...

130
Album Review

Susannah McCorkle: Someone to Watch Over Me

Read "Someone to Watch Over Me" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Having reviewed favorably Susannah McCorkle's seventh Concord recording, in which she ably interpreted more than a dozen of the wonderful songs of Irving Berlin, I can do no less for No. 8, an earnest tribute to the music of the immortal George Gershwin. Simply put, McCorkle is a singer who leaves scant room for complaint. Although I really wouldn't call her a Jazz singer in the truest sense of the phrase (she takes few liberties with a melody), McCorkle emotes ...

112
Album Review

Susannah McCorkle: Someone To Watch Over Me

Read "Someone To Watch Over Me" reviewed by John Sharpe


Having already tackled the works of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer, McCorkle turns her attention to another great American composer, George Gershwin. One can't argue with the song selection, they are all classic standards, but this time out Susannah seems less than inspired. Perhaps the formula is wearing thin. Her voice, which has acquired a nice, husky bur over the years, is fine and is perfectly suited to the material. She is always been a fine lyric interpreter ...

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132

Music Industry

A Tribute to the Life and Music of Susannah McCorkle (Washington, DC area 6/21/01)

A Tribute to the Life and Music of Susannah McCorkle  (Washington, DC area 6/21/01)

Source: All About Jazz

The Darcie Johnston Quintet presents an evening of music and stories that capture the essence of this consummate performer. Susannah, an internationally known jazz artist, tragically took her own life on May 19th of this year. Join Darcie Johnston (vocals), John Albertson (guitar), Sal DeRaffele (bass), Paul Carr (sax), and Larry Taylor (drums) as they bring you a retrospective of Ms. McCorkle's brilliant career.

Event Date: Thursday, June 21st

Event Time: 8-11pm

Venue: The Bangkok Blues Restaurant & Bar

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Music Industry

Susannah McCorkle: Tragic End for Gifted Singer

Susannah McCorkle: Tragic End for Gifted Singer

Source: All About Jazz

Jazz singer Susannah McCorkle was found dead outside her home in New York. The singer, who suffered from bouts of clinical depression throughout her life, apparently committed suicide. A note was found in her apartment, along with a Will and a detailed instructions regarding her estate. It was a tragic end to a life and career in which she established herself as one of the best jazz singers of her generation. Her interpretations of jazz standards, ...

177

Music Industry

Susannah McCorkle - Jazz Singer Dead at 55

Susannah McCorkle - Jazz Singer Dead at 55

Source: All About Jazz

Singer Takes Fatal Plunge

Susannah McCorkle, a silken-voiced jazz vocalist and mainstay of the city's cabaret scene, apparently jumped to her death early yesterday from her upper West Side Manhattan apartment. She was 55. McCorkle, who performed in clubs and concert halls throughout the country, was found lifeless in front of her building at W. 86th St. at 3:45 a.m., police said.

In her bright, orderly apartment, she had set out a will and other legal papers, along with instructions ...

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Ballad Essentials

Concord Music Group
2002

buy

Hearts & Minds

Concord Music Group
2000

buy

Hearts And Minds

Concord Music Group
2000

buy

From Broken Hearts To...

Concord Music Group
1999

buy

Someone to Watch Over...

Concord Music Group
1998

buy

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