The One and Only Pearl Bailey Sings is a fairly routine collection of standards, novelties and pop songs. When Mercury Records' Wing budget label reissued it a few years later, the title changed to For Adults Only, which implies a program of bawdy songs or
Sophie Tucker-style "red hot mama" material. The latter is only marginally closer to the mark, and the reissue's voyeuristic cover shot -- showing
Pearl Bailey through a keyhole wearing a spaghetti strap dress -- only adds to the ruse that something naughty is in store (the original Mercury LP shows the same photo but without the keyhole effect).
The One and Only Pearl Bailey Sings has only a few moments that could be considered even mildly suggestive by '50s standards, but the tantalizing reissue must have sold reasonably well because it spawned a sequel, More Songs for Adults Only. Several songs about men, as well as "Porter's Love Song to a Chambermaid," again raise the specter of
Sophie Tucker, but
Bailey is far more playful and romantic than risqué. Two overtly humorous moments are "The Gypsy Goofed," a song about a quack fortune teller and romantic frustration, and "I Can't Rock and Roll to Save My Soul," which alleges that
Bailey can't rock even as she's doing it. The latter is an interesting number in that it characterizes rock & roll as an Arthur Murray dance style instead of a musical genre (as did many dance albums of the era), and bears a conceptual similarity to
Nat King Cole's "Mr. Cole Won't Rock & Roll."
Bailey sings a few oldies such as "That's My Weakness Now" and "Sweet Georgia Brown," the inclusion of which suggests that the "adults only" label may signal the album's renunciation of the young world of rock & roll in favor of decades-old pop songs and styles. As a star of stage and screen,
Bailey was an all-around entertainer closer in spirit to the vaudeville age than the increasing juvenilia of pop music circa 1956, and
The One and Only Pearl Bailey Sings shows it. ~ Greg Adams