Drake, Paul - Sings Love

Tracks

Side 1

		Track Name	Length
	1	I Honestly Love You	03:24
	2	Don't Let Me be Lonely Tonight	02:57
	3	Love's Been Good To Me	02:43
	4	Lady Linda	04:02
	5	A Song for You	03:45

Side 2

		Track Name	Length
	1	When the World Was Young	03:42
	2	Nice to be Around	02:28
	3	Pour l'amour de toi	02:47
	4	As Time Goes By	02:39
	5	Too Much City	02:46
	6	When the World Was Young (Part II)	00:52

Photos

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Information/Write-up

Great cities are not defined by chambers of commerce. A good town has to be felt through its emotional life. Paris, after all, is not just a series of arrondissements: it’s the City of Light. Paul Drake could have reflected on this during his walks to work on rue du Colisée in Paris in 1962. He played the Gaslight Club in those days, direct from the Chez Ernest in Montreal or the Hilton in Athens or the Society Restaurant in London, or was it Jilly’s in New York City, or any number of urbane piano bars around the world where he played happily for a while never feeling quite at home.

Today, Paul Drake is to the Windsor Arms Hotel in Toronto what Mable Mercer is to the St. Régis and Bobby Short is to the Carlyle in Manhattan—he is a very special kind of institution.

The Club 22 of the Windsor Arms Hotel opened in 1964, at a time when the hotel itself, under the direction of George Minden, began changes that were to make it one of Canada’s great small hotels. Paul Drake had arrived in Toronto from Paris, France, with a new wife from Paris, Ontario, hoping to play the room for a few months. This small ambition turned into thirteen years, and a home if there ever was one.

The room has changed very little over the years—the Francois Dallagret drawings are still on the wall, the lighting is dim in deference to loving couples, Tommy is still the finest bartender in the city, the same waiters approach guests with impeccable tact, and Paul’s regulars, loyal in the extreme, grow in rabbit numbers even he finds hard to comprehend. What we have here is a very special kind of continuity—and continuity is a sure sign of maturity in the emotional life of a great city.

Paul Drake was born in Montreal in 1938. He can scarcely remember the time when he wasn’t an entertainer. Early influences of Johnny Mathis and Buddy Greco led ultimately to the more refined stylings of, among others, Cole Porter, Vernon Duke, Harold Arlen, Jimmy Webb, Peter Allen, Sy Coleman, and Alan Jay Lerner, not to mention Noël Coward and Stephen Sondheim.

In the 50s, he played to indiscriminating audiences in the Laurentians and came to deal with that. Not much later, while working the Beaumont Hotel in Palm Beach, he was approached by Barbara Vanderbilt to play one of her society soirées, and came to deal with that. Since good performers are popular in such circles, he was soon hired away by the Haskells and the Duponts for private parties anywhere between Palm Beach and Cape Cod. Once, he was flown to New York and taken to Wilmington, Delaware in a private railroad car to provide a Dupont gathering with a little entertainment.

Over the years, Paul Drake has come to accept the attentions of Katherine Hepburn, Gloria Swanson, Mick Jagger, Judy Garland, Gordon Lightfoot, Maggie Smith, John Lennon, Errol Garner, George Shearing, Prince Constantin and Princess Irene of Greece, and any number of celebrities who have passed through his world appreciatively and with no small amount of respect.

There has been a long measure of good and bad times that has led Paul Drake to his home at the 22. The reviewers like to call him “a seasoned performer.” But the secret of his success is the special relationship his music has to his audience. The 22, much in the tradition of a Manhattan piano lounge, is the kind of room that normally would call for a more fluid and restrained kind of piano than his own. But Paul Drake attacks his material instinctively, even aggressively. He brings to his music the kind of person he is and in this sense Paul Drake’s voice is very much his own.

Somewhere between the emotional intuitions of Paul Drake's performance and the yearnings of his audience is dialogue that on the right night reaches the proportions of communion. He has a talent for bringing many worlds into one room and sharing them with those who want to listen.

Above all, this is an album in celebration of love. Behind even its more despairing moments, there is an irrepressible optimism. The talents of sidemen Pat LaBarbera on sax, Hagood Hardy on vibes, Brian Russell on guitar, Eric Robertson on piano, and the lush strings under Matt McCauley add up to a polyphony that retains the character of Paul Drake at his best. What we have here is a record you can count on being around for a while. Paul Drake has found his place in the emotional life of his city.
-Tom Hedley

Paul Drake: vocals, keyboards
Brian Russell: guitar
Ed Bickert: guitar
Fred Mollin: guitar, percussion
Andy Hermant: percussion, producer, rhythm track arrangements
Gary Gray: percussion, rhythm track arrangements
Matthew McCauley: string arrangements, conductor
Albert Pratz: concertmaster
Dave Young: acoustic bass
Tom Szczesniak: electric bass
John Anderson: drums
Sue Piltch: flute
Eric Robertson: piano
Pat LaBarbera: saxophone
Hagood Hardy: vibraphone

Produced by Gary Gray
Recorded at Manta Sound, Toronto, Ontario

Photography by Paul Munck

Side One
Honestly, I Love You - 3:22
Words & music by: Peter Allen & Jeff Barry
Publishers: Irving Music Inc. & Woolnough Music & Broadside Music Inc.

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight - 2:55
Words & music by: James Taylor
Publishers: Blackwood Music Inc. & Country Road Music Inc.

Love’s Been Good to Me - 2:40
Words & music by: Rod McKuen
Publishers: Almo Music Corp. / Ambassador Music Ltd.

Lady Linda - 4:00
Words & music by: Paul Drake
Publisher: Horsefeathers Music Company Inc.

A Song for You - 3:43
Words & music by: Leon Russell
Publisher: Skyhill Publishing Company Inc.

Side Two
When the World Was Young - 3:45
Music by: Philippe-Gérard
English lyrics by: Johnny Mercer
French lyrics by: Vannier
Publishers: Criterion Music (Cherry Lane Music in North America)

Nice to Be Around - 2:28
Music by: John Williams
Lyrics: Paul Williams
Publishers: Fox Fanfare Music Inc. / Almo Music

Pour L’Amour De Toi - 2:44
Music by: Marvin Hamlisch
English lyrics by: Edward Kleban
Translated to French by: Anne Van Burek
Adapted by Paul Drake
Publishers: Chappell & Co. Ltd.

As Time Goes By - 2:38
Lyrics & music by: Herman Hupfeld
Publishers: Warner Bros. Publications Inc.

Too Much City - 2:45
Lyrics by: Tom Hedley
Music by: Paul Drake
Publishers: Horsefeathers Music Company Inc.

When the World Was Young (Part II) - 0:48
(See the first song of side two)

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