The Incredible Nancy Ames

 

Greenfields

The Incredible Nancy Ames

Cover Design and Photography: Studio Five

Liberty Records LST-7276

1963

From the back cover: Probably one of the most incredible things about Nancy Ames is that she ever became a singer at all. She was a well-bred Washington, D.C. society girl whose training during her formative years was slanted to the acquiring of the social graces – with a fling at ballot, music and the other arts. She seemed hardly likely to emerge with a singing voice that her coach, Todd Duncan, was quoted in Look Magazine as describing as... "warm and sensuous – like yellow wheat and ripe apples"." But that's just what she did... as you'll hear in this album.

The desire to sing professionally was overpowering with Nancy. She set out to get every bit of experience possible. This experience included singing Broadway show tunes at charity shows and on local television programs in her home city of Washington, D.C., and on Broadway itself in the musical "Tenderloin." But it was the field of folk music which became her great love. Like the familiar folk song, Nancy was sure "I know where I'm going" as was Harry Belafonte, her one-time personal manager. And that direction was to be kind of exciting music represented in this collection.

In this, Nancy Ames' recording debut, you are privileged its hear the special quality, the wonderful depth and breadth of a vividly alive, radiantly lovely girl in whose singing you will hear reflected the flash and fire of her Spanish heritage (her grandfather is a former president of Panama) as well as her naturally fresh vocal quality.

Some of the songs in this album are contemporary folk songs – composed recently, but in the true folk idiom – and as new and refreshen as Nancy Ames herself, and all of them a credit to her love of beautiful melodies and meaningful lyrics. They are excitingly accented by the vibrant rhythm of the guitar (an instrument Nancy plays so well) and by sensitive backgrounds proved by enthusiastic musicians.

So then, here is a most auspicious debut. After you've heard her sing, it's certain that the objective "incredible" will seem to have been coined just for Nancy Ames. – Carol Donovan

Bon Soir Cher

Quiet Boy

Little Peanut Shell (Gotta Make It Grow)

Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye

Greenfields

Alma Corazon Y Vida

Come To Me

Long Time Boy

South Coast

Angel Cake And Wine

Young Young Man

Cu Cu Reu Cu Cu Paloma