Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: 1971-1973

Some months ago, I posted three albums of Lulu's BBC performances. I thought that was all the material available. However, musical associate Marley shared with me a bunch more that I'd missed and that have been extremely rare. As far as I know, they weren't publicly available anywhere. So a big thanks to him. 

There was so much material that I was able to turn what had been one album dealing with the years 1968 to 1972 into two albums. The drastically changed Volume 3 now features music from 1968 to 1970, while this new Volume 4 features music from 1971 to 1973.

Everything here is officially unreleased. Previously, I only had a few songs from this time period, all from various TV shows, mostly her own BBC show, with good but not great, sound quality. Thanks to Marley, now 12 of the 17 songs here are from proper BBC studio sessions. All of those have excellent sound quality, thanks to original transcription discs that have survived.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, Lulu's career started to go downhill around this time. She started out a raspy-voiced, energetic soul singer. But over time she became more of a generic, all-purpose pop entertainer. She lost her emphasis on soul and got very cheesy at times. As a result, by the early 1970s, she became a mainstay of variety shows on TV, but her actual musical career declined and the hits dried up. 

She had a last gasp with a cover of the David Bowie song "The Man Who Sold the World," produced by Bowie himself. After that, I lost interest in her music. By chance, that's also right when the BBC switched to largely using album versions of songs instead of having special versions done just for the BBC, so her BBC material ends right then anyway (although her TV show appearances continued).

That's not to say the music here isn't good. I was selective, and only included songs that I liked. But I had to get more and more selective with each passing year. I really wish she would have stayed with the mid- to late 1960s style that made her famous. But then again look at how the same decline happened to other similar singers such as Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, and Dionne Warwick, with their most acclaimed era ending in the early 1970s.

But don't let me scare you off. If you liked the first three volumes in this series, you should like this one too. I have my standards for song choice, performance, and sound quality. There still are a lot of highlights here. And, just like with the previous albums in this series, a majority of the songs weren't actually ever recorded by her for any of her albums or singles.

This album is 54 minutes long, not including the bonus track. 

The one bonus track is a nice duet with Dusty Springfield. Unfortunately, the sound quality just isn't there compared to the others, so it merits bonus track status only. I also have it on a Springfield stray tracks collection.

01 Bridge Over Troubled Water [Edit] (Lulu)
02 Help [Edit] (Lulu)
03 You've Gotta Believe in Love [Edit] (Lulu)
04 Save the Country (Lulu)
05 Get Ready [Edit] (Lulu)
06 I Got Love [Edit] (Lulu)
07 Resurrection Shuffle [Edit] (Lulu)
08 Everybody's Got to Clap (Lulu)
09 It Don't Come Easy (Lulu)
10 Blue Suede Shoes - Hound Dog - Heartbreak Hotel - Love Me Tender - Teddy Bear - Jailhouse Rock (Lulu)
11 Just a Little Lovin' (Lulu)
12 Nights in White Satin (Lulu)
13 Amazing Grace (Lulu)
14 It Takes a Real Man [To Bring Out the Woman in Me] (Lulu)
15 Even If I Could Change [Edit] (Lulu)
16 Lean On Me (Bill Withers & Lulu)
17 The Man Who Sold the World (Lulu)

Scarborough Fair (Dusty Springfield & Lulu)

https://www.imagenetz.de/g4EmJ

The cover art photo comes from a BBC TV show in 1971, but I don't know the details.