Sugar – NANCY SINATRA***

Sweet Georgia Brown/Vagabond Shoes/Oh You Beautiful Doll/Hard Hearted Hannah/All By Myself/Coastin’/ Mama Goes Where Papa Goes/Let’s Fall In Love/What’ll I Do/Limehouse Blues/Sugar Town/Button Up Your Overcoat/My Buddy

Sugar, the fourth album from Nancy Sinatra in little over a year, exploits her sex kitten image with its bikini clad cover, which contrasts with some of the old time standards within. Includes the top ten hit single Sugar Town. CD version benefits from the melodic chart topping duet with her father, Somethin' Stupid. (US:18)

"This album features Nancy Sinatra singing Dixieland jazz versions of standards, with the exception of two new songs done in a more modern style, written by producer Lee Hazlewood - Coastin', and the hit Sugar Town. Honestly, the Dixieland style is not the best showcase for Nancy's voice. She is more suited to the type of pop music that she had hits with. Not a bad album, but not one of her best, either."

"This album was something of a departure for the chanteuse. Unlike her previous efforts, which were a mix of songs by producer/Svengali Lee Hazlewood and covers of pop hits of the day, this one featured only three Hazlewood compositions, along with lots of old-timey pre-rock standards. These include a couple - All By Myself and What'll I Do - by Irving Berlin."

"The cover art is really all that recommends it. Pleasant, but pedestrian 'vocal standards' material."

"Irving Berlin is to Nancy as Harold Arlen was to Barbra Streisand. She covers two Berlin songs and one Arlen song and I think she updates them well."

"I didn't think I was going to like this album much, but I was wrong. Some of this was pretty entertaining. OK, her voice isn't all that special at covering the old standards. But she and the band have some silly lounge fun at times."

"Sugar really bucked the trend of her previous albums. Nancy Sinatra came up with a genre album, which, as the inner sleeve says, 'sweet, soulful serenades from the old timey years'. That includes 1930s swing and blues, which means lots and lots of brass."