1967

Betty Buckley's 1967 looks at first glance like it might be some kind of deadpan joke: the album cover is a spot-on re-creation of a certain kind of graphic design cliché from the titular year, right down to Buckley's period dress and hairstyle and the extremely old-fashioned, prominently placed logo, complete with a "MONO" marking. The song list is a peculiar mix of jazz standards ("They Can't Take That Away from Me," "My Funny Valentine," "When I Fall in Love,") and a few minor pop hits from the period (Chris Montez's "Call Me," also popularized by Astrud Gilberto, and the Monkees' "I Wanna Be Free"). And, perhaps most tellingly, the producer credit is given to contemporary cross-genre superstar T Bone Burnett. But, no kidding, this really is Betty Buckley's debut album, recorded in 1967 but never properly released until 40 years later. The Fort Worth native was not quite 20 at the time, having almost won the Miss Texas pageant the year before but a couple years before she pulled up stakes and moved to Manhattan to become the toast of Broadway through her starring roles in shows like 1776 and Cats. And her fellow Fort Worth native J. Henry Burnett really did record and engineer these tracks, in the small studio in town that he owned and managed at the time. (This, incidentally, was around the same time that Burnett produced and played drums on the Legendary Stardust Cowboy's "Paralyzed," which alone would have been enough to cement his musical credentials even if he'd never done anything else.) The 11 songs were clearly recorded quickly and either live or close to it: Buckley is singing in front of a piano trio led by the unknown pianist Charlie Baxter, who provides simple supper-club arrangements that only draw attention to themselves on the unexpectedly discordant full stop that ends "Call Me." Buckley is clearly already a talented singer here, but it's undeniable that the shadow of Barbra Streisand looms large over her full-throated interpretations of these songs, which occasionally veer into bombast when a more subtle interpretation might have worked better. Of course, 1967 is really nothing more than a quirky curio for fans of both Buckley and '60s vocal pop, but it's certainly an entertaining listen.