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Praise for Soldiers Of The Heart: More Songs Of Babbie Green…

• “The world needs more Babbie Greens. Her pointed view of the foibles and wonders on matters of love, relationships and day to day living offers the kind of comfort one finds in the embrace of one’s closest friend and a perceptive untangling of confusion one sometimes hopes to find by paying hundreds of dollars once a week to a (less than) perfect stranger.

  What Green accomplishes in her songwriting is ideally capturing a thought, emotion or memory and recounting it in terms with which one instantly identifies, whether she’s direct, as in the tale of the child of divorce found in Two Homes or the bitter reaction to thoughtless words in Did You Hear What You Just Said, or paints an illusion, as Green does with the tale of unspoken sadness in High Tea with Lewis and Carroll.

  Through this generous two disc, 29-song set, one is alternately awed by the breadth of Green’s musical and lyrical craftings and immediately inspired to join in song with Green, Laurie McIntosh and Kristen Benton. This is an instantly engaging musical trio, featuring unusual voices that, while not the most powerful ones you’ll ever hear, convey a lyric with clarion truthfulness and boundless guile. Whether going solo, teaming up in pairs or triad, Green, McIntosh and Benton are purveyors of song who obviously love the words they’re singing and the melodies on which they ride. And with Green’s songs, how could they feel any different?

  While many performers have made Green’s creations part of their own repertoire, there is something about hearing a songwriter perform her (or his) own work that brings an added, sometimes entirely different, dimension to the song. A good case in point is David Friedman, who’s turned to performing his own work lately and infuses his now well known titles with a passion others simply could never achieve. And that’s what Green does as well. Sure, finer voices have sung her songs, but it’s Green’s heart and soul that gave them life, and one would almost swear McIntosh and Benton are their godmothers.”

  — Jeff Rossen

• “Babbie Green has been marked by her heritage for most of her career. That’s a plus and a minus: a plus because she clearly has inherited the songwriting brilliance of her father, Johnny Green (composer of “Body and Soul,” “Out of Nowhere” and “I Cover the Waterfront,” among others); a minus because the familial connection has tended to obscure Green’s own superb catalog of songs. “Soldiers of the Heart” (*** 1/2)–a two-CD collection of her songs–is a giant step toward bringing much-deserved visibility to her work. Performed by Green on vocals and piano–with frequent singing accompanists Kirsten Benton and Laurie McIntosh–the 29 songs offer an extraordinary collage of life and love in America around the turning of the new century. It’s a grouping that asks for careful attention and repeated hearing, but one that offers the rewards of experiencing the creative energies of a gifted musical imagination in full flight.”

  — Don Heckman, Los Angeles Times, January 12, 2001

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