CD Review: Ben Stock Sings Noel Coward

BEN STOCK SINGS NOEL COWARD – Ben Stock (SimG Records – SimGR-CD036)

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Well, this came as a bit of a surprise. I haven’t heard anything to do with Noel Coward since I was involved in a couple of productions of Noel & Gertie back in the 1990s. I do have to say that working on that show for over a year somewhat jaded my appreciation of Coward – too much of a good thing? Who knows! Anyway, I really haven’t given Coward a thought since those days.

My first reaction when I received this to review was: Oh please – no! But, like any good reviewer, I put it on the old music machine and actually started to enjoy what I was listening to. Ben Stock hasn’t simply put together a lot of Coward songs and attempted a half-hearted impression of ‘the master’. He has incorporated other composers into the songs, such as the Gershwins’ ‘Fascinating Rhythm’ and ‘I Got Rhythm’ in Coward’s ‘Dance, Little Lady’. Not only does it work but it also refreshes a song that has maybe become a little cliched through the years. Or sometimes he incorporates two Coward songs into the one, as in ‘Sail Away’/‘When My Ship Comes Home’.

One can tell from listening to this album that Stock is a great fan of Coward and wants to do him justice, which he certainly does. The problem for me is that, if I saw this album in a store or even online, I wouldn’t necessarily purchase it based on the fact that it is purely Noel Coward songs. It’s a difficult one. On the one hand: it is done with such panache and love that it works but, on the other: I would never have found that out if I hadn’t been sent it to review.

Over the years I have been sent a couple of Coward-based CDs to review and, to be honest, I’d rather listen to Coward himself if I had to listen to his music. They were all second-rate impersonations of the clipped tone associated with Coward himself and I haven’t been very complimentary about them. What this album does have is originality and therefore, if I were to have one in my collection – it would probably be this one.

The album is available through benstock.biz website where you can also learn much more about Stock himself.

Nick Wakeham