Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

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Teri Thornton

  • I'll Be Easy to Find [Verve, 1999] A-

Consumer Guide Reviews:

I'll Be Easy to Find [Verve, 1999]
A veteran of polio, cancer, incarceration, and cabdriving whose perfect pitch and three-octave range were getting raves when she was in her twenties, Thornton transfigures the showboating artiness that puts pop fans off jazz singers. Since I've lived happily without Sarah Vaughan and Abbey Lincoln, at first I didn't trust my pleasure in the soulful concentration, harmonic subtlety, and deliciously curdled timbre of Thornton's first record since 1963. But from her self-composed blues to her rearranged "Lord's Prayer," her occasional piano to her consistent standards, this woman knows how to serve a song her way. If she's making something of "It Ain't Necessarily So" and "Nature Boy" at this late date, it's only because she's waited a long, long time. A-