Eileen Hunter : Scotland's Got Talent
Eileen Hunter’s route to recording artist has been a long and varied journey. She has travelled across Europe, Africa and South America as a pianist in her father’s band. After leaving her hometown she travelled to Leeds to study Jazz as a postgraduate before heading to London where she performed as a solo singer in venues such as, Savoy Theatre and The Royal Albert Hall. Eileen has certainly earned her stripes having also performed in bars and hotels across the country.
Having been born in Aberdeen into a musically talented family it is no surprise that Eileen Hunter has delivered a self-titled debut album that deserves to be heard by a wide audience.
What Hunter does particularly well on this album is to take songs from the 1940s and 1950s such as, Burton Lane’s Old Devil Moon and My Baby Just Cares For Me most commonly associated with Nina Simone, and give them a unique contemporary twist that has provided these tracks with a new lease of life. Hunter’s renditions of these tracks will see a younger audience introduced to these classic songs.
Alongside the Jazz standards there are several newly penned tracks that she has co-written alongside respected music industry figures like Livingstone Brown and Alan Glass. Eileen also worked closely on the album with her husband, Steve Brookstein who was the first-ever winner of X Factor in 2004. The album that they have created together proves that reality television programmes can produce talented performers and songwriters, but they are never really given the opportunity to showcase their originality once the cameras have stopped rolling.
The highlight of the album, in my opinion, is the track I Miss The Sky which proved to be a very popular song when it was first-aired on Jazz FM earlier this year. It was written by Grammy-nominated songwriter, Jesse Harris who has previously worked with Norah Jones.
The album is billed as a Jazz album, but the truth is it shakes off Jazz music’s unfashionable image to effortlessly combine Jazz with Soul. It has managed to lay down a marker about what 21st century Jazz music should sound like.
Eileen Hunter consists of 14 tracks that each manage to evoke different emotions. This is a well produced album that demonstrates a high level of musicianship and excellent vocal ability from an exciting new artist. This is an album that does not contain any songs that have you reaching for the remote control to press the skip button. I am already looking forward to the sophomore album.
Rating : 5 stars – Scotland’s Got Talent.
‘Eileen Hunter’ is available to purchase now.
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Writen by Stephen Almond
Posted on Tue 31st August 2010 and filed under Albums, Reviews.Do not forget to subscribe to our RSS feed for updates
I am fortunate enough to own this album.It contains some old classics, with a twist, also some tracks which will become classics.As is said, not just a jazz album this offering benefits from the addition of beautiful songs co-written with her husband Steve Brookstein amongst others, who I feel he’s drawn the very best out of her voice which is like melted chocolate.I cannot imagine anyone could be disappointed with this album whichever genre is your personal favourite. 5 stars!
Thank you Lynn for your comment. The album has really made an impression on people and as stated it does appeal to various amount of genres and is sure to be well received by music lovers.