Making a Good Thing Better album review
NEWTON OLIVIA JOHN: ‘Making A Good Thing Better’ (EMI EMC 3192)
The pictures on the cover are almost worth the price of the album alone. She beams on the front and looks seductive on the back - what a cute nose.
‘Making A Good Thing Better’ is an average song turned into a speciality, her voice sounds like twelve Vestal Virgins. On “Slow Dancing” you close your eyes and slide out of your chair as her voice trickles everywhere warming you from head to foot in all your interesting places. “Ring Of Fire” is the sort of plastic country that makes you cringe, but the tearful quality in her vocals is used to its best effect on “Coolin’ Down” backed by slow subtle arrangements. Her version of ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ even betters Julie Covington’s.
Nobody does it quite like Livvy. ++++ (4 stars)
By Robin Smith