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Soul on Fire: The Best of LaVern Baker | 
 enlarge | Artist: Lavern Baker
Label: Atlantic / Wea
Category: Music
List Price: $11.98
Buy New: $7.29
You Save: $4.69 (39%)
New (8) Used (7) Collectible (1) from $5.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 4461
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 82311
UPC: 075678231124
EAN: 0075678231124
ASIN: B000002IRY
Release Date: October 1, 1991
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: sealed
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| Tracks:
| • | Soul on Fire - LaVern Baker, Baker, LaVern | | • | Tomorrow Night - LaVern Baker, Coslow, Sam | | • | Tweedle Dee - LaVern Baker, Scott, Winfield | | • | That's All I Need - LaVern Baker, Chase, Lincoln | | • | Bop-Ting-a-Ling - LaVern Baker, Paul, Clarence | | • | Play It Fair - LaVern Baker, Campbell, Bill | | • | Jim Dandy - LaVern Baker, Chase, Lincoln | | • | My Happiness Forever - LaVern Baker, Pomus, Doc | | • | Get up, Get up (You Sleepy Head) - LaVern Baker, Breedlove, Jimmy | | • | Still - LaVern Baker, Burton, Dorian | | • | I Can't Love You Enough - LaVern Baker, Burton, Dorian | | • | Jim Dandy Got Married - LaVern Baker, Chase, Lincoln | | • | I Cried a Tear - LaVern Baker, Julia, Al | | • | Whipper Snapper - LaVern Baker, Leiber, Jerry | | • | I Waited Too Long - LaVern Baker, Sedaka, Neil | | • | Shake a Hand - LaVern Baker, Morris, Joe [Drums | | • | How Often - LaVern Baker, Baker, LaVern | | • | You Said - LaVern Baker, Wright, Sara | | • | Saved - LaVern Baker, Leiber, Jerry | | • | See See Rider - LaVern Baker, Traditional |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Simply put, LaVern Baker, one of the greatest vocalists in Atlantic Records' history, could sing anything, as she proved again and again during a seven-year run of chart hits that began with 1955's "Tweedle Dee" and culminated in 1963's "See See Rider." Her material, supplied by many of the era's greatest songwriters (Leiber-Stoller, Pomus-Shuman, and many others), encouraged her to draw on her gospel and big band backgrounds in exploring the emotional subtext of serious ruminations on life such as "Saved" and the powerful "Soul on Fire." The latter was her first Atlantic single, and on it she used virtually every vocal technique at her command to bring out the slow-burning sensuality of the Ahmet Ertegun-penned gem of erotic longing. Thus was notice served, and, in the glorious years that followed, Baker cut a swath wide enough that her name and label-mate Ruth Brown's were spoken in the same reverent terms, sotto voce. The 20 tracks here remain as vital today as they were indispensable to the music's evolution in her own time. --David McGee
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 SUBLIME VOCALS May 12, 2008
LAVERN BAKER WAS ONE OF THE BIGGEST SELLING ARTISTS OF THE 1950'S WITH PLENTY OF HITS ON THE CHARTS. SHE HAD A BEAUTIFUL VOICE, WITH GREAT PHRASING AND INTONATION. THIS IS A GREAT CD COMPILATION OF MOST OF HER HITS. IF YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO A GREAT VOICE FROM THE PAST, THIS IS A GOOD CD TO LISTEN TO.
 Care: sound is awful March 18, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I actually wonder if people praising this collection below did listen to it. I hope the new Platinum Collection that was remastered last year by Rhino (as for Ruth Brown) has a better sound. Both LaVern collections are the same 20 tracks. Here, and despite my love of this music, I consider that the sound of this CD (released in 1991) is a shame. So I thought I had to prevent people who want to discover LaVern Baker: don't buy this. Look for the best sounding collection in the first place (I don't know which one).
Oh, what a voice!! November 20, 2007
I remember hearing "Jim Dandy" on an oldies radio station, and getting instant recall to hearing it as a child in the fifties from the back seat of my dad's 1953 Plymouth. I also recalled hearing "I Cried a Tear" and "See See Rider" a few years later. LaVern Baker's rich, urgent vocals always stuck with me, and I had to find her CD. What a windfall it was to get all of those great songs on one CD. I enjoy every track, and I'm sure that you will too. This is a great CD from a great artist.
A R&R/R&B Legend July 26, 2007
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
One of the great advantages to having become a teenager in the early 1950s is the fact that, by having lived through the birth of R&R, you can look back and give an honest, unbiased opinion as to who constituted the wheat and who made up the chaff.
Let's face it, the early days of R&R were male dominated, and when you get right down to it, only three women were able to consistently hold their own on the charts in those days with the likes of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Elvis, Pat Boone, Jerry Lee Lewis, and The Everly Brothers. They were Connie Francis, Brenda Lee, and LaVern Baker.
Born Delores Williams on November 11, 1929 in Chicago, her first record releases came in 1951 on Columbia's Okeh subsidiary when she was billed as Bea Baker and, later that same year, as "Little Miss Sharecropper" on the National label. In 1952 she took the name LaVern Baker while performing with Todd Rhodes & His Orchestra, and her success there led to a contract with the fledgling Atlantic Records. Her first release, Soul On Fire - fittingly the title for this CD - was written by the label's legendary founder Ahmet Ertegun, and while it didn't chart in either the R&B or pop Top 40 when released in late 1953, that would change in 1955.
In January that year, with her back-up group The Gliders, she released the bouncy Tweedlee Dee which, b/w the soulful Tomorrow Night [an Elvis favorite] went to # 4 R&B and # 14 pop. And although it was outsold in the latter market by a rushed-out Georgia Gibbs cover, the buying public would not let that happen again. From there to her last big charted hit in 1966, no one dared cover her again.
Of her 21 charted R&B and pop hits, 15 are included here, with the only missing gems being Tra La La (1956), It's So Fine (1958), So High So Low and Tiny Tim from 1959, 1965's Fly Me To The Moon and, from 1966 while with Brunswick Records, the duet with Jackie Wilson, Think Twice.
LaVern, who sadly passed away at age 67 in 1997, did get to see her name enshrined in the R&R Hall of Fame in 1991, thereby correcting a five year oversight [she should have been selected with the first inductees in 1986]. In any event, this is one CD you MUST have if you want an appreciation of one of the top three most influential female artists of Rock's early days. And while you're at it, search out the fabulous LP LaVern Baker Sings Bessie Smith.
Beautiful LaVern May 26, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Not only was she great in every way these other reviews say, she was a very beautiful lady on the outside and inside. The only place I had to hear her when I was a teenager was at a mainly "blacks" cafe on the "down" end of the town I grew up in. There were no "black" radio stations then in my hometown. My closest friend and I could sometimes get a far off radio station that played this kind of music, but we'd slip off and go to this cafe (Miles' Cafe) after high school let out. I can't remember what we used as an excuse as to why we were late getting home from school. (Parents cared in those days, but would not have approved of our going in to "that" cafe.) I'm so glad I ran across this album on Amazon. Well, Amazon actually recommended it to me. Thanks Amazon. I remember most of these songs. Oh, I graduated from high school in 1957.
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