The Torch Singer

“What is a torch singer you may ask? Well imagine the big band era of the 40’s and 50’s, like you were part of the Glenn Miller days. Sometimes a female singer would take the stage, stand in front of the microphone with the spotlight on her, and on her alone, and she would sing this melancholy song – usually it would be a sad love song. She was known as a torch singer, the single spotlight being the torch. The song is actually not a torch song, but it is about the torch singer herself.

I can’t remember when I wrote this one but I remember playing it to Inna about 10 years ago (if not longer!) I helped her out with a couple of verses to a song she had written and she said as a thank you she would do the vocal for The Torch Singer for me when I got around to recording it. To her credit she never forgot her promise. Jörg was still ill at this time and time was running out to finish the album so Siggi suggested giving Michael Quast a call who was a top keyboard player on the circuit. He came in the studio and I played the song to him. He liked it very much and we had a lot of fun doing it. We changed the key to fit Innas’ voice and I explained to him how I imagined the song should sound. Everybody agreed to hit the horns and ‘big band’ it up so we went at it, or rather Michael did. His arrangement was perfect. He even put down a couple of acoustic guitar tracks. (We didn’t even know he could play guitar!) Finally Inna put down her vocal, so laid back and superbly done. She got the mood spot on. It was supposed to be the last song on the album but I had something up my sleeve…

Here is a segment