★★★★★
Now in the fifth decade of her enviable career, Freda Payne has nothing to prove. But, unlike most of her contemporaries, Payne continues to perform tirelessly, regularly participating in stage musicals and tribute concerts and releasing new music on CD. And, like an old friend, she still has a real relationship with her fans, one that continues on her newest recording, On the Inside, the first on her Band of Gold Records.
- www.soultracks.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
I loved the title cut, too--on the radio--but this is not, as I had hoped, the auspicious debut of a new soul talent. Invictus is the Holland-Dozier-Holland label that represents their breakaway (as producers) from Motown, but this album represents no breakthrough. True, the material is mostly original, but the arrangements aren't, and Payne's emotional range is narrow.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Recommended to those who neglected to purchase "Band of Gold" (wedding-night impotence!) and/or "Bring the Boys Home" (Vietnam with violins! a black sister calling out for peace with her brother content to exhort from the background!), which together with two familiar-sounding tunes by label-owners Holland-Dozier-Holland and two entertaining soap operas make for as nice a side of minor Motown as you're likely to get from the original these days.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Payne's brand of glossy pop/soul clicked when she got the right material; even when she didn't, Payne's experience and training as a jazz vocalist made her performances interesting, and that was the case on this collection. The songs are even smoother and more cabaret- and supper-club-oriented than her hits, and show Payne carefully pacing songs, interpreting lyrics, and displaying a soft, yet emphatic vocal style.
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
★★★★★
When Freda Payne signed with the reactivated Volt label in 2000, many of the diehard soul lovers who knew her for "Band of Gold" and "Bring the Boys Home" were no doubt hoping for an album of Detroit soul and Holland/Dozier/Holland classics. But the veteran singer is more versatile than that. Before she became known for Motor City soul, Payne recorded jazz for ABC/Paramount, MGM, and Bob Thiele's Impulse! label (home of heavyweights like John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders)...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
★★★★★
By the year 2000, the golden oldie rotation of "Band of Gold" was the main thing keeping the memory of this singer alive. Yet, deep in the catalog of this classic jazz label lies this ambitious, largely successful recording which shows just how diverse and indeed brilliant Freda Payne can be. The album is divided half into big band tracks, half into small combo...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
★★★★★
In 1970, the spirited R&B;/pop singer Freda Payne Freda Payne had a monster success with "Band of Gold," a bouncy love-gone-wrong song that was probably the first top-40 hit ever written about impotence. Decades later, with undiminished pipes, beauty, and impressive energy, Payne returns to the spotlight with this big-band outing from Mack Records on its Artistry Music imprint. Arranged and conducted by the brilliant pianist Bill Cunliffe Bill Cunliffe b...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2014-07-20
★★★★★
With her latest album, Come Back to Me Love , Freda Payne comes full circle. It is an album of jazz and pop standards - the kind of songs that Payne grew up hearing and singing in her home town of Detroi, and the kind that were featured on Payne's first recordings in the early 1960s. Payne's early career bears some similarities to Aretha Franklin, another daughter of Detroit who found moderate success recording tunes from the Great American Songbook canon before her soul music ship came in...
- www.soultracks.com
2014-07-21