Track Listing

1. Land Where the Good Songs Go
2. I Won't Dance
3. Nobody Else But Me
4. Folks Who Live on the Hill
5. Fine Romance
6. Remind Me
7. You Couldn't Be Cuter
8. Why Was I Born?
9. I'm Old Fashioned
10. All the Things You Are
11. Can't Help Singing/They Didn't Believe Me
12. Till the Clouds Roll By/Look for the Silver Lining
13. Sure Thing/Long Ago (And Far Away)
14. Can I Forget You?/Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
15. Pick Yourself Up
16. Song Is You
17. Land Where the Good Songs Go (Reprise)
18. Go Little Boat

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #76821 in Music
• Released on: 2008-03-17
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

The Next Step
I fell in love with McNair's voice when I heard her sing in a recording of Orff's 'Carmina Burana'. Here is a soprano that could actually hit the REALLY high notes in 'Dulcissime' without sounding strained and forced. it encouraged me to pursue her other recordings. As a lover of early American theatre this CD was the logical choice. I LOVE IT. There are several songs I didn't know, but are some of my favorites now like "a fine romance" and "pick yourself up". She sounds like she is completely enjoying herself and the bass and piano do a fabulous job of supporting her instrument.

the song is "kern"
that's all i needed to know about this cd when i first learned of its existence....andre previn lent great creadence to it....sylvia mcnair was a question mark....and the big question before that mark was, 'would she be able to make the musical transition?'? i felt, with kern's greatest works (were there really any mediocre ones? if so (which I doubt) even they would be even a little incredible....so how could i lose. i could always turn it off. turn it off? I couldn't stop playing and replaying it....even those that were a bit of a stretch....make that a great stretch...for the diva turned out to have a pull on me....something happens to people who decide to sing "kern"...they begin to believe this is what they were meant to do....and they even have us believing it....and, after all, maybe that's the kind of legacy jerome kern left us.....some composer's melodies fade and feel dated after awhile....kern's work seems to transcend the works of even those considered to be giants...berlin, rodgers, and even gershwin looked up to kern as 'their man'. do i recommend this cd? only if you want to feel you walked into a strange, distant, empty land and heard a beautiful song for the first time in your life....only you knew every musical phrase as it took its turn in telling us of itself....the consistent factor here...and all of kern's genius...is the fact that he never disappoints you. he doesn't know how to compose a dishonest or dissonant chord. i guess the title of this cd says it all, doesn't it. .

Superb voice, accompaniment
I was really drawn to Sylvia's vocal stylings on this CD, knowing how difficult it is to adapt from opera to popular music. Granted she seems a little stiff and a bit lacking in jazz swing on the brisker numbers such as "I Won't Dance", but she more than compensates for this minor flaw with her superlative renderings of the gorgeous ballads included here. "The Folks Who Live On the Hill" is probably my favorite cut. As a pianist, I was in awe of Andre Previn's accompanying genius. Every pianist who accompanies a singer should listen to this CD several times. I was a big Previn fan in the seventies, and it's great to here him in this intimate setting. Nice work by the bassist as well. I just hope that we will continue to see more McNair/Previn releases soon!