Now, this is one of those wonderful Internet discoveries - no matter what I think of how Internet has changed music industry and brought the end of local music shops, on the other hand it did gave second life to many forgotten, obscure and out-of-print recordings that I would never find otherwise. There is a real thrill in finding something that was so under the radar for decades and voila, one day, it somehow comes your way - trough recommendation or simply trough browsing - and you say to yourself "I really like this" from genuine love for music and not because advertisements had brain washed you to stupor.
Take Lin Maessen.
In all probability the small fish on Australian pop scene some four decades ago and never even close to chart success of The Bee Gees, Olivia Newton-John or Helen Reddy but not because she was any lesser artist, probably for hundreds of outside factors that have nothing to do with music itself. Lady had a wonderful, sonorous deep voice that was startling in its unusual colour and sensuality. If I have to compare her with anybody, it would be Anne Murray or Helen Shapiro which means not only that she could easily sing country or jazz but also that she could be very difficult to pin down since she was so versatile. This ultra rare LP compilation collects her early 1970s singles that give interesting glimpse in than-current pop music, what was going on down in Australia and how the producers saw her - sometimes they let her gently croon, sometimes they wanted that deep voice even more pronounced (to such extremes that you would swear it's a man singing), giving her either country or cheesy international covers, often serving her with rickety-tick cabaret cellophane (Nellie Lutcher's old chestnut "Hurry On Down" that Bette Midler would gloriously bring to camp perfection on her "Live at last" album) or even wrapping it all in faux-Bacharach sound ("Amber Light") - even with all this, with campy covers and production that more often than not was not glitzy as US recordings, Maessen is joy to hear because she was such exceptional, natural talent that you can quickly tell her from thousands of other voices. Yes, dear reader, I admire unusually deep female voices.
That Maessen eventually left music business and never pursued it later (apparently content with anonymous life) is besides the point here - to my ears she was great as anybody mentioned above and it just prove my suspicion that success in music industry is more a matter of nerves, ambition, perseverance, management, media manipulation and sheer luck. You listen this voice and marvel, to hell with chart success (and seems she did had some for a brief moment) so even if this forgotten compilation would certainly file her under "one hit wonder" it is such a wonderful discovery decades later - yes, its a typical radio pop of early 1970s with healthy dose of country/easy-listening cheerful atmosphere but singer is so good that she rises above it all.
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