Around 1969, the music industry began to focus on popular songs like rock and artists such as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Bacharach, affecting artists who had obscure Broadway songs in their repertoire. Her previous album had not achieved commercial success, causing A&M to hesitate in releasing more albums by her.
The 1969 film The Sterile Cuckoo, in which Minnelli played the lead role, and the song "Come Saturday Morning" brought recognition and Oscar nominations. This motivated the record label, which had planned to release another album by the singer with more contemporary sounds.
Musically, it resembles its predecessor, combining popular music genres of the time, such as soft rock. The tracklist includes songs that were popular at that moment, such as "MacArthur Park" by Richard Harris, "Didn't We" by Jimmy Webb, the recent hit by Peter, Paul & Mary, "Leavin' on a Jet Plane," and songs by Newman, Gordon Lightfoot, Aretha Franklin, and Harry Nilsson. The rest of the compositions are the same mix of mainly then-current pop/rock and singer/songwriters songs with a couple of Broadway/Vaudevillian songs that made up the previous album.
The critical reception of the music was mostly favorable, but commercially, it performed poorly, becoming her third album not to chart on Billboard magazine's success charts.
Similar to her previous albums released by A&M Records, this album was never issued alone on CD, but all tracks in their original order are included in the 2008 compilation album The Complete A&M Recordings.[2]
The cover photo was used in the 2001 compilation 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: Best of Liza Minnelli.[3]
Background and context
Around 1969, the music industry was undergoing changes in public taste regarding music.[4] The Broadway songs for which Liza Minnelli was known were usually overshadowed by popular artists' productions by record labels, prioritizing music genres like rock and artists like John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach, and Hal David.[4] In this changing context, Liza Minnelli began to change her repertoire. In her self-titled previous release, she recorded songs by artists like Randy Newman and Sonny Bono.[4] Despite this, Liza Minnelli album did not achieve commercial success, making the record label hesitant to release albums by the singer.[4]
With the success of songs from the rock musical Hair in 1969 (such as "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" by 5th Dimension),[5] A&M decided to have Minnelli record the song "Frank Mills" from the soundtrack and released it as a standalone single, but it also did not achieve success.[4] Subsequently, Minnelli landed the lead role in the film The Sterile Cuckoo, which premiered in October 1969.[6] The theme song, "Come Saturday Morning," was performed on the soundtrack by the group Sandpipers.[4] When the nominations for the 1970 Oscars were announced in early 1970, Minnelli received a nomination for Best Actress, and "Come Saturday Morning" was nominated for Best Original Song,[7] leading the record label to believe that it was finally the right time to release an album by the singer.[4]
Production and release
The recordings took place during three sessions in August 1969 (on the 8th, 29th, and 30th), with the first at Western Records and the last two at Columbia Records Studios.[8] There was also a session at A&R, in Manhattan.[8] The album was produced by Larry Marks and arranged by Dick Hazard, Michael Colombier, Bob Thompson, and Peter Matz.[8] Ray Gerhardt handled the audio engineering.[8] The album's design is by Corporate Head, art direction by Tom Wilkes, and photography by Guy Webster.[8]
As part of the promotion, Minnelli performed songs from the album on television shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show.[9][10] On January 31, 1970, the Billboard magazine included an advertisement for the album in its issue, which would be released the following month.[11]
Cashbox magazine considered the album excellent and highlighted tracks "Leavin' On a Jet Plane" and "On a Slow Boat to China."[13] The magazine's critic concluded by saying, "an excellent showcase for this talented young vocalist. Could be a substantial item."[13]
Morgan Ames from High Fidelity magazine wrote that she initially considered Minnelli a singer without previous technique, but her opinion changed over the years. She noted that the album's producer, Larry Marks, "made the artist express herself in the most perfect way possible."[14] Ames stated that 'Come Saturday Morning' is elegant, current, suitable for the singer, featuring superb arrangements and a vocalist who "found out who she is as a singer" and whose vocals are more restrained, beautiful, and powerful than before.[14] She selected the songs "Don't Let Me Lose This Dream," "Simon," and "Slow Boat to China" as the album's highlights.[14]
William Ruhlmann, from the website AllMusic, rated the album three and a half out of five stars and wrote that "Minnelli handles the newer songs bravely (...), but typically comes to life only when singing the old song 'Nevertheless (I'm in Love with You),' which is more her style."[4]
