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Critic's Review
Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
The Patty Waters who appears on You Thrill Me: A Musical Odyssey 1960-1979 stands in stark contrast to the free jazz maven of Sings and College Tour. The music collected here by San Francisco's Water label is previously unreleased. It is assembled from a collection of home recordings, many of which feature Waters accompanying herself on piano on her own compositions. The recording quality varies, but the quality of the performances does not. This is music from the other side of the blues. There is joy here, but it is tempered by something far more vulnerable, dark, and heartbroken. Whether she is singing the Jax beer jingle that opens the collection, Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia," or one of her own tunes (such as the title track) or the stark and lovely "At Last I Found You," the contrast between romance and regret, light and dark, optimism and acceptance is ever present in the grain of her voice. Her cover of Billie Holiday's "Fine and Mellow," with its lilting swing, is another choice moment here. The 14-and-a-half-minute "Touched By Rodin in a Paris Museum" is an anomaly in that it is a completely instrumental piece, featuring Waters' beautiful pianism which, in style and tone, is commensurate with her singing. Finally, a charming aspect of this package is in the form of brief dialogues with her recording engineer that precede some of the tracks. The package is full of photographs and liner notes by Waters, Ghost's guitarist Masaki Batoh, and Byron Coley.
