小简介
"她的嗓音就像加州的天气,充满了阳光,但背後却又隐藏著这地震般强大的能量"。这是加拿大著名的诗人歌手Leonard Cohen给珍妮佛.华恩斯(Jennifer Warnes)最与众不同的赞美,同时也十分真切地点名了多才多艺的演员/作曲家/歌手珍妮佛.华恩斯之所以被美国流行乐坛公认为最伟大的女性艺人的重要特质。曾由她原唱或翻唱的歌曲,原唱者虽然个个赫赫有名,但是透过珍妮佛啭折巧妙,情感丰富的嗓音重新诠释之後,俨然又塑造出另一种经典版本。喜欢珍妮佛华恩斯作品的乐迷,势必对她善於揉和忧伤、喜乐、感怀与念旧等情绪的歌声有难舍的迷恋,特别是当听她唱到高贵亲情、失落爱情的全然投入时,气氛就像一股超强的磁场,能远远地吸住路人的注意力。对於九零年代以後的乐迷而言,或许稍显陌生,但是老式的唱法却绝对禁得起时代的考验,倒过来变成每一度复古潮流的仿效的指标。
by William Ruhlmann
Jennifer Warnes has succeeded in a number of nearly unrelated areas of popular music — as a contemporary pop singer, as a country singer, as a singer of movie themes, and as an interpreter of the work of Leonard Cohen. She first came to public notice when she became a regular on the television show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967, under the name Jennifer Warren or simply Jennifer. In 1968, she was part of the original cast of the Los Angeles production of the musical Hair, and she signed to the Parrot Records subsidiary of London Records, which released her debut album, ...I Can Remember Everything. Her second album, See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me!, appeared in 1969. Neither album was a commercial success, and she moved on to the Reprise division of Warner Bros. Records, which released Jennifer, produced by John Cale, in 1972. When that album also flopped, Warnes signed on as a backup singer with Leonard Cohen. She joined Arista Records in 1976 and finally registered in the charts in 1977 with Right Time of the Night, a Top Ten pop hit that reached number one in the Easy Listening charts and also made the Top 40 in the Country charts. It was drawn from her Arista debut album, Jennifer Warnes. The follow-up, Shot Through the Heart (1979), featured I Know a Heartache When I See One, a Top Ten Country and Top 40 Pop and Easy Listening hit. Warnes next album was an Arista hits compilation, Best of Jennifer Warnes (1982). In July 1982, Island Records released Up Where We Belong, the love theme from the movie An Officer and a Gentleman, a duet between Warnes and Joe Cocker. She had sung movie themes before, but never with such success: Up Where We Belong hit number one and went platinum. Not surprisingly, moviemakers sought ber out, and in 1983 she had chart entries with Nights Are Forever (from Twilight Zone — The Movie) and the title theme from All the Right Moves, a duet with Chris Thompson In 1986, she became the first signee to the short-lived Cypress Records label, which released her acclaimed Famous Blue Raincoat, an album of Leonard Cohen songs, at the start of 1987. In July of that year, RCA Records released (Ive Had) The Time of My Life, the love theme from the film Dirty Dancing, a duet between Warnes and Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers. It topped the charts and went gold. Warnes spent five years crafting a follow-up to Famous Blue Raincoat, releasing The Hunter, which featured songs by various writers, herself included, in 1992. Note that Warnes many label affiliations preclude any compilation from adequately covering her career and that, amazingly enough, neither of her biggest hits is available on a Jennifer Warnes album. In 2001, Warnes decided that she had enough feuding with labels and her fans were rewarded with her first solo album in nine years. The Well, which was released in 2001, was privately funded and Warnes retained control of the masters, ensuring that she would control the destiny of the album and its songs far into the future.