I Never Went Away

“Bennett reveals a pleasant singing voice, as well as providing piano accompaniment of impeccable taste and relevance.” Gramophone 

“…rich harmonic resource and a fluent piano technique, both articulate and cultivated …the richness of his detail and his fluent inventiveness always perfectly attuned to the mood of each lyric. ” The Star, New Zealand 

Sir Richard comments about the recording sessions for “I Never Went Away”: “Listening to the radio as a child in the mid-to-late forties, I used to try to play any tune that caught my fancy. At that time I wasn’t aware that Gershwin, Porter and Arlen were Great American Songwriters, merely that their tunes were as necessary and desirable to me as toy trains and furry animals were to other children. I clearly remember forcing my mother to buy me the sheet music of Laura when I was ten… “I made this album in a beautiful, quiet church in downtown Los Angeles in January, 1990. I just had a piano and microphones; there were no monitor speakers in the room with me, no flashing lights or sound-proofing equipment, and any electronic gadgetry was restricted to the control room. The sound I heard as I sang and played is the sound you hear now. While I was recording I was thinking – “but this is too simple and warm, surely there ought to be problems?” But there were none, and maybe this happiness comes over in the music.”

I Never Went Away (Richard Rodney Bennett) – A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (M. Sherwin / E. Mashwitz – Paper Moon (Harold Arlen / Harbury / Rose ) – Let’s Take the Long Way Home (Harold Arlen / Johnny Mercer) – These Foolish Things (Holt Marvell / Jack Strachey / Harry Link) – Home Thoughts from Abroad (Clifford Bord) – You’d be so Nice to Come Home to (Cole Porter) – I Thought About You ( Jimmy Van Heusen / Johnny Mercer) – The Folks Who Live on the Hill (Jerome Kern / Oscar Hammerstein III) – Autumn in New York (Vernon Duke) – Do You Miss New York? (David Frishberg) – Paris is My Old Kentucky Home (Coleman -) If You Were the Only Girl in the World (Nat D. Ayer / Clifford Garey) – ‘Bye ‘Bye Blackbird (Ray Henderson / Mort Dickson) – Waiting at the End of the Road (Irving Berlin)