Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Vocalist Andy Bey Dies at 85
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Concord Records has signed Grammy-winning singer Rita Coolidge. The label will produce and release her first new recording in over five-years and her first jazz album of her career.
Coolidge, who scored gold and platinum hits across multiple genres and decades, is perhaps best known for her signature songs “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher,” “We’re All Alone,” “The Way You Do Those Things You Do” and “Fever.” The versatile singer also recorded “All Time High,” the theme for the James Bond movie “Octopussy,” and landed on the adult contemporary charts with “You” and “I’d Rather Leave While I’m In Love.”
Coolidge’s first album for Concord, slated for summer of 2005, will be overseen by Concord Executive Vice President John Burk, who most recently worked with Ray Charles on the platinum recording Genius Loves Company, and produced by Jimmy Haslip of The Yellowjackets. The CD will include a repertoire of popular jazz and pop standards, as well as “A Song For You,” a song Leon Russell wrote as a love letter to Coolidge that she has never previously recorded.
“I am thrilled that I have finally been given the opportunity to create a jazz CD, a genre that I have loved all my life. To be able to do so with a label that has a reputation as solid and as well-respected as Concord Records is quite rewarding,” Coolidge says. “Everyone at the label is so genuinely passionate about the music. I am very excited to be able to work with them all.”
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
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