The Songbirds Archives

Purr-fect – Greatest Hits
7N / BMG Records (66748-77001-2), U.S., 1999

Singer-actress Eartha Kitt first recorded four standards with Doc Cheatam in 1950 after touring most of the world with the Katherine Dunham dance troupe, did two Afro-Cuban sides for Seeco, then got discovered in New Faces of 1952 with her show-stopping number Monotonous. Since then, she has lived the rags-to-riches fairy tale life of Cinderella, still going strong all these years later with her theatrical, physically expressive cabaret shows, still expressing the underlying fury of her abusive childhood, with the hits in this collection still forming the base of her shows.

While at RCA, Kitt had six singles that sold over 600,000 copies each (all in 1954), something of a marvel since, as she notes, "They say I haven't got a voice." Initially, Kitt was seen as an artist that would not be able to sell to the mainstream, as someone who would never surpass specialty material and a big city audience. This disc showcases the range of her singing talents, which cross through mambo, calypso, spirituals, blues, Broadway tunes, and novelties, sung mostly in English but also in French, Spanish, Swedish, German, Turkish, and Hebrew. Eccentricities intact, as producer Dave Kapp decided all Kitt needed was for someone to record her "exactly as you are."

Kitt was lucky to have arrangers and producers who were as determined to display her versatility in authentic and interesting settings as they were to capture the exciting presence of this very visual performer on recordings. Indeed, despite hit records, several films (St. Louis Blues, Anna Lucasta) Broadway shows (Mrs. Patterson, Shinbone Alley), Kitt remains primarily a cabaret performer who needs to be witnessed in person first and foremost. She is as much an experience as she is a singer, the epitome of "personality" singing but bubbling over with a musicality that finds her recordings standing the test of time.

These 22 sides show an incredible versatility, from the country and western Lovin' Spree to the jazz of The Blues and Let's Do It to the perfectly suited novelties Mink, Shmink, Santa Baby, Just an Old-Fashioned Girl to the signature tunes I Want to Be Evil, Uska Dara and C'Est Si Bon, to songs she introduced such as Lilac Wine, Angelitos Negros, Mountain High, Valley Low, and Thursday's Child, Kitt proves there is nothing she can't do and do well.

Her rise to fame in the 1950s was the perfect time for her to be in New York City – the newly-formed United Nations and the international attitudes of moneyed ambassadors gave her an immediate audience of burgeoning internationality to show off her skills with Turkish, French, Spanish, Swedish, working social commentary such as Angelitos Negros and Thursday's Child into her repertoire alongside sex kitten numbers such as I Want To Be Evil, Somebody Bad Stole De Wedding Bell, and I Wantcha Around.

One surprising omission from this disc is any representation from her sublime album of W.C. Handy tunes (plus two spirituals) with Shorty Rogers and his Giants, St. Louis Blues – inspired by her film with Nat "King" Cole – where Kitt is at home "down home" as she is as the celebre of Paris.

A woman who has written three volumes of autobiography might easily be seen as silly and pretentious, but this disc showcases what is best and of enduring interest about the Kitt persona: the songs. Her singing may fall under the "acquired taste" umbrella, her celebrity may overshadow her skills as an interpreter, but this disc is a welcome addition to any CD collection. And, from there, one can go out and get the Bear Family boxed set, Eartha-Quake! from which all of these tracks are culled. There one will find the entire Shorty Rogers album, as well as the complete scores of her Broadway vehicles referenced above.

Official Eartha Kitt website