La Strada (1991)

About this title: An obscure San Francisco singer who was hard to fit into a neat category, Connie Champagne showed much promise on the varied La Strada. This unpredictable and varied CD posed the question of whether she was a singer/songwriter, a pop-rocker, or more of a torch singer into jazz and pre-rock pop. And the answer is that she wears all of those hats equally well. La Strada gets off to a psychedelic start with an inspired cover of the Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties," but Champagne is just as convincing on a jazzy, klezmer-ish version of the classic "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and the ... read more

Tracks:

1. Intro
2. All Tomorrow's Parties [Reed]
3. Shades [Bowie/Pop]
4. Don't I Have the Right? [They Might Be Giant]
5. All Dressed Up [Strauss]
6. Merrill [Hopkins]
7. That's Something [Champagne/Trott]
8. Must Be [Kirk]
9. More Than I Will [Champagne/Trott]
10. Rip the Screen [Champagne/Trott]
11. I Want You [VonSneidern]
12. Frenchette [Johansen/Sylvain]
13. The Boulevard of Broken Dreams [Dubin/Warren]
14. What Do I Do [Eitzel]
15. Drinking Again [Mercer/Tauber]
16. Home from War [Griffith/Ramont]
17. Outro

Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is further described below.