Claudine Longet – We’ve Only Just Begun

Okay, not every purchase is a good purchase, even if it’s from the dollar bin, even if it’s likely my dealer just tossed it in with whatever else I was buying that day. I had previously rescued two Claudine Longet albums from his dollar section, and pronounced them fine. Nothing stunning, but they could fit in with some other breathy (usually French) pop, and they were in excellent condition so why not give them a good home. Those two, from 1967 and 1968 were both perfectly playable and enjoyable.

This is from 1971 – and, really, I’m regretting the space it takes up. Which isn’t much. But her wisp of a voice is even more wispy, even more twee, here than on the earlier albums, and the songs wouldn’t be my favorites under most circumstances anyway. There are a couple of Melanie Safka songs, which I appreciate but which Longet’s voice isn’t up to, and Longet’s own translation of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” which packs 0% of the power of the original. Brought this home at the start of 2023, and have played it exactly twice. There’s a reason it was in such good shape.

I do like that the back cover photo is literally shot through a screen. Good job, Guy Webster – whose photographs, it turns out, are all over my collection (The Mamas & The Papas, Boyce and Hart, even Da Capo by Love), but whose credit I hadn’t noticed before.