Lindsey Muir’s sweet, smoky style is all about a young, expressive singer hunkering deep down inside the heart of a song’s lyrics and melody. More than just another pretty voice, Lindsey, who just turned 24 and makes her recording debut here, knows how to make lyrics evocative. Feel the warmth of her interpretations of "You’re Nearer," "I Wish You Love," "My Foolish Heart" and her elegant, intimate grand finale, "That’s All."
Although her classically trained voice is graced with a girlish innocence, there’s also a smart, seductive subtext simultaneously implied. "You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me" is, indeed, sexy, swinging.
With Lindsey, all things come from the heart. Even the inspiration for the album is rooted in a heart-tugging tale. It’s about Lindsey’s discovery of a love song that her late grandfather, Dick Bivona, wrote decades ago for her grandmother, Victoria, who died in 2003. Dick, an amateur songwriter who died 40 years ago, wrote "Is It Love You’re After?" for his beloved wife, Victoria.
Lindsey first heard the song two years ago. Her mother, Vita Muir--founder and director of Litchfield Performing Arts and the Litchfield Jazz Festival-- sang it at the bedside as Victoria lay dying. Victoria seemed unresponsive. Yet after the song was sung, the matriarch puckered up for a kiss, first from granddaughter Lindsey, then from daughter Vita before dying. From this cinematic-like drama, Lindsey’s album was conceived.
Any vocalist would gladly kill to have the superb accompanists Lindsey chose. Best of all, she got to handpick evergreens that speak to her. Listen, and they’ll speak to you too in the universal language of the romantic ballad that Lindsey sings so fluently and so well.
OWEN McNALLY, former jazz critic for The Hartford Courant
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