Based on her eponymous cabaret show, vocalist Lisa Yaeger’s exciting new album, Jersey Girl, celebrates songs written, performed, or famously recorded by New Jersey natives. A Jersey girl herself, with a bright, adorably sexy voice, Yaeger is remarkably daring. Not only does she take on tunes definitively performed by the likes of Whitney Houston, Marilyn McCoo, and Connie Francis, but she also renders signature songs of men, such as Sinatra and Springsteen, whose iconic vocal personas stand in stark contrast to her peppy, girlish sound.
Yaeger’s fun album comprises 14 selections of show music, standards, and contemporary popular songs, all with punchy piano-bass-and-guitar accompaniments arranged by the recording’s pianist, the late Rick Jensen. Despite the spectrum of musical material—styles ranging from 1930s swing, to Burt Bacharach pop and Bon Jovi rock—Yaeger performs each number with her own confident, upbeat sensibility. Shifting appealingly from quiet, breathy tones to powerful, rangy belting, she exudes an unconquerable spirit, even while singing of heartbreak, rejection, or yearning.
Yaeger prioritizes storytelling in her clean, unembellished approach to lyrics. We don’t miss a word. Emotionally, she communicates by telling, not showing. When expressing even the saddest of sentiments, Yaeger’s vocal quality remains relatively unaffected, and we continue to feel a positive buoyancy undergirding her music. I think that’s why I like this recording so much. Mood-wise, it’s never a “downer.”
A dynamic pop singer with terrific theatrical instincts, Yaeger opens her album with an exuberant interpretation of Newark-born Paul Simon’s “America,” her youthful sound favoring the song’s optimistic qualities over its implications of disillusionment. And while her enticing version of “One Less Bell to Answer” (Burt Bacharach/Hal David), memorably recorded by Jersey City-born Marilyn McCoo and The 5th Dimension, is distinguished by thoughtful phrasing that strongly supports the storyline, as she sings “all I do is cry” Yaeger sounds more seductive than sorrowful.
Displaying nifty vocal variety, Yaeger brings big, brassy singing to a swinging arrangement of the 1936 tune “You Turned the Tables on Me” (Louis Atler/Sidney D. Mitchell), renders the album’s title song (written by Tom Waits) with romantic bluesy-ness, then captures a hard-driving ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll beat in “Fallin’” (Neil Sedaka, Howard Greenfield). And to be clear: this “Fallin’” is not the Alicia Keys hit, nor the show tune from the 1979 Broadway musical They’re Playing Our Song. Rather, it’s the single recorded in 1958 by Connie Francis (born Concetta Franconero, in Newark).
“I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (George Merrill, Shannon Rubicam), the mega-hit for Newark-born pop star Whitney Houston, proves a fabulous showcase for Yaeger’s signature spunk, as she performs it with the attractive assurance of one who knows what she wants and is quite certain she’ll get it. The showiest track on the album, however, is Yaeger’s exhilarating performance of the invigoratingly arranged “Luck Be a Lady” (Frank Loesser). Introduced by the male romantic lead, charming gambler Sky Masterson, and his fellow crapshooters in the 1950 Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, the number eventually became one of Jersey-born Frank Sinatra’s signature songs.
And while I thought it was audacious enough for Yaeger to tackle a “Sinatra song,” not to mention one created for an iconic male character from one of the American musical theatre’s most beloved shows, she follows that track with Bruce Springsteen’s “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy).” Yes, she takes on The Boss, himself—the musical artist most powerfully identified with the Garden State—and proffers a tender interpretation of the rock icon’s early jewel, his masterful evocation of working-class youth culture at the Jersey shore. Absent the ruggedness of Springsteen’s voice, Yaeger’s rendition brings forth the gorgeous poetry of the wistful ballad’s rough lyrics.
Yaeger closes her album with “When We Were Beautiful” (Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Billy Falcon). Neither the song itself, nor Yaeger’s performance of it, is terribly interesting musically. However, I liked being left with its lyrics’ nostalgic invitation to “go back and find” what we lost when we lost our innocence. Fittingly, there’s something about the young, hopeful energy Yaeger’s adult voice emits throughout the album that suggests such a return and recapture mission is indeed possible.
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Jersey Girl additional musicians: Steve Bargonetti, Sean Harkness, and Tom Hubbard.Produced by Lynn Pinto and Rock-It Science Records.
Lisa Jo Sagolla is the author of “The Girl Who Fell Down: A Biography of Joan McCracken” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Dances of the 1950s.” A choreographer, critic, and historian, she has written for Back Stage, American Theatre, Film Journal International, and numerous other popular publications, encyclopedias, and scholarly journals. An adjunct professor at Columbia University and Rutgers, she is currently researching a book on the influence of Pennsylvania’s Bucks County on America’s musical theatre.
