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">Jane Olivor (born May 18, 1947) is an American cabaret singer. She was initially compared, often favorably, to
Barbra Streisand and Édith Piaf.[3
Background
Olivor was born as Linda Cohen[citation needed] [5]in Brooklyn, New YorkJohnny
Mathis and Gene Pitney.
Pitney would appear on her album, Love Decides.[6] She eased
her way into the burgeoning New York City cabaret scene in the early 1970s. She
appeared at the Reno Sweeney cabaret, which cabaret Lewis
Friedman and Eliot
Hubbard owned and operated, and which Vito Russo"the center of the
universe during the now-legendary cabaret revival of the early '70s."[7] It was there
that she was discovered by Clive
Davis, then President of the Columbia Records label, who was in the
audience at her first appearance on its stage.[8] Although she
appeared to be living out any performer's dream, she knew she was by no means
fully prepared for the fame--one factor was that she did not really know the
capabilities of her own voice. Her intimidation turned to debilitating stage
fright.[8] and reportedly grew up
with a background in folk music, although her particular influences, she has
claimed, were described as
[edit] Early career
Olivor quickly caught on, playing such venues as Brothers & Sisters and
The
Ballroom. She became known, notably among the gay community, for her interpretations of famous songs such
as "Some Enchanted Evening" from the
Broadway musical South Pacific and "Come Softly to Me",
the 1959 chart selection by The Fleetwoods.[citation needed]
Credited as "Janie Olivor, stage performer", an early performance is captured
in the film Saturday
Night at the Baths, an independent film shot at the infamous Continental Baths where (among others) Bette
Midler[citation needed] In the
film, historically important for its footage both of the bathhouse and of Olivor
herself, Olivor sings an early version of "Pretty Girl." Written by Olivor with
Kathy Wakefield, "Pretty Girl" would later appear on Olivor's In Concert and Safe Return recordings. got her start.
She became noticeable enough for the Columbia Records label and the William Morris Agency to sign her. Her
debut album, First
Night, released in 1976, was named Stereo Review's Album of the Year.[9][10]
In September 1977, her second album, Chasing
Rainbows, was released to coincide with Olivor's debut at Carnegie Hall.
The first pressing of the album contained a one-sided insert 45 RPM single of
"Some Enchanted Evening",
re-recorded by Olivor and produced by Charles Calello (the noted producer of Laura Nyro's Eli and the Thirteenth
Confession album). Chasing Rainbows was produced by Tom Catalano. This album
reached the Top 100 bestsellers, remaining in the charts for three months, and
peaked at number 87 on the Billboard charts.[11]
Susan Casazza and Norman Dolph wrote and composed "Stay
the Night" specifically for Olivor.[citation needed] As the
title track of the 1978 Stay
the Night album, the song was Olivor's best-selling recording for
Columbia Records.[citation needed] Olivor's
slowed-down version from this release of The Chiffons' "He's So Fine", with its sinewy saxophone and
multi-tracked Olivor vocals, became the biggest-selling single of her career and
charted into Billboard's Top 100, peaking at number 77.[12]
In between Stay the Night and the release of The
Best Side of Goodbye, Olivor found herself busy with concerts and also
toured as a special guest of Johnny Mathis.[citation needed] Their
duet, "The
Last Time I Felt Like This," was the theme for the 1978 film Same Time, Next Year. The song,
with music by Marvin
Hamlisch and lyrics by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman, was nominated for a Golden Globe
Award and an Academy
Award.[13]
The 51st Academy Awards ceremony in April 1979 (the "Oscar" telecast) marked
the first time that all five of the nominated songs were performed by the
artists who recorded them for the films themselves; Olivor and Mathis performed
their duet live at the televised event.[14] Olivor's
fourth album, The
Best Side Of Goodbye, produced by Louie Shelton, Michael Masser, and
Jason Darrow, was released in 1980 and
climbed to number 58 on the Billboard charts.[11] Inexplicably, Columbia released the song "Don't Let Go Of Me" as the album's
only single, rather than the title track which many felt could have propelled
Olivor into the Top 100 again.[citation needed]
Jane
Olivor in Concert, her first live album, was released in 1982 and
included "Race to the End", a vocal version of the Vangelis theme from the film Chariots of Fire and, again, "Stay the Night" as its singles.
It is unknown whether Columbia Records has unreleased tracks recorded by
Olivor during her contract years there, though it would be highly unusual for
there not to be additional tracks that were not included in the released
recordings. Certainly at the very least, there must be unreleased tracks from
the In Concert recording (scarcely more than 30 minutes long), including the Stephen Schwartz arrangement of the
medley "The Water is Wide"/"I Know Where I'm Going",
singled out by fans and critics as one of the finest performances ever by
Olivor.[citation needed]
[edit] Performing hiatus
In 1983, her own stage fright, nervousness at the sudden onrush of fame, and
numerous unfavorable experiences with the music industry led Olivor to schedule
a one-year hiatus from both performing and the heavy pressures of her too-fast
fame. That hiatus would stretch to seven years when, in addition to her other
challenges, her husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer six months after they
married.[10][15] Olivor put
her career on hold to care for him until his death in 1986. In the meantime, she
had disputes with Columbia Records over money.[citation needed]
Return to performing
After having sought and received treatment for depression in 1989,[15][10] Gradually,
she became more active, and in 2000 her first album in eighteen years, Love
Decides, was released, followed in 2001 by Songs
Of The Season. Olivor
returned to performing in 1990 and discovered that her fan base had remained
loyal to her throughout her absence.
On November 11, 2003, Olivor appeared at the Berklee Performance Center at Berklee
College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where she taped
Safe
Return, a live album of music spanning her entire career. She had
recorded her first live album, Jane
Olivor in Concert, in the same venue in 1982, but had not performed
there since. The concert
was recorded as both an album and a DVD, and both were released in 2004.
In June 2004, Columbia Records released her greatest-hits collection, titled
The
Best Of Jane Olivor. It is a compilation of her best-known songs,
including the Academy
Award–nominated song The
Last Time I Felt Like This with Johnny Mathis. This is the first time that the
duet has been issued on a Jane Olivor album.
