Record Rap (upcoming female singers)
LESLEY DUNCAN
CARLY SIMON
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN
You can count the number of female superstars of today’s popular music without having to use your toes Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins headline the folk music area; Gracie Slick and the late Janis Joplin stand out as the only female stars of the male dominated rock music scene; and Carole King, Laura Nyro and Barbra Streisand represent the top of the crop in popular sounds.
Sure, there may be one or two others like Mary Travers or Rita Coolidge who are just below the superstar level, but not too many.
Three fairly new talents now stand as good a chance as any to break the superstar barrier - Lesley Duncan, Carly Simon and Olivia Newton John.
Olivia Newton-John has the hardest road ahead of her, for she is not a songwriter (or if she is, she hasn’t included anything of her own on her first album).
“If Not for You,” the title song and her single success, is a good example of her vocal style throughout - whispy, breathless, unoffensive.
In the photo on the album cover, Olivia sits in the grass with a look on her face that says “Buy me, I won’t hurt you.” She could be summed up as Janis Joplin’s stylistic anti-thesis.
But her interpretations of the work of others is, for the most part, first class. Highlights include “If” a song made popular by Bread; two Lesley Duncan songs, “Lullaby” and “Love Song:” “No Regrets” by Tom Rush; and, of course the single, Bob Dylan’s “If Not for You,” which she does much in the same vein as did George Harrison on “All Things Must Pass.”
She can smooth over a song the same way Barbra Streisand can give it guts. She sings softly as nicely as Barbra belts them out. But because she does not do her own writing, as do most of the other current or pending female stars, she had better keep putting out the hits if she’s going to stay in the limelight and not disappear very quickly as a one-hit artist.
So there are three possible breakthroughs, each with something special to offer. Albums by Carly and Lesley would be a nice complement to your record collection if it contains the likes of James Taylor or Tom Rush. Olivia requires less concentration to enjoy if only because her songs are not her own, but merely a very pleasant interpretation of some of the nicer things being turned out today.
But, above all, try and give an ear or two to Leslie Dun-can. There’s plenty of room for her at the top.