2/6/07
This review just in today from a fabulous writer,Doug Boynton and a great website supporting us "girl singers"-check it out! www.girlsingers.org
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BENITA HILL The Nashville cabaret singer gains a richer tone and more sensitive control of her burnished voice with each outing. Hill's new I'll See You in My Song takes a romantically sultry turn through well-chosen jazz tunes without drawing on the same old warhorses. She mixes material by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Mel Torme, Sammy Fain and Bob Dorough with six co-written originals, all of them timeless enough for Peggy Lee yet as fresh as a just-poured cosmopolitan. She works with the city's best jazz players, both on record and in person. She'll premiere the record with two local shows tonight and Monday the 12th at a new jazz venue with a glimmering downtown view located in the same building that once was home to the Italian restaurant Sole Mio. (benitahill.com ) Ga'Dang -MICHAEL McCALL, Nashville Scene
Source: http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Arts/Our_Critics_Picks/2006/06/08/Our_Critics_Picks/index.shtml

Top jazz, pop singer finally makes CD of standards
By Ron Wynn, rwynn@nashvillecitypaper.com
June 09, 2006

Nashville singer/songwriter Benita Hill has always loved performing torch songs, jazzy pieces and blues-favored numbers; but she’s enjoyed such success doing many other things that until recently she had never gotten around to recording a disc of standards.

But her latest release, I’ll See You In My Song, is not only her foray into that territory, but like all Hill’s projects, it is quite distinctive and stands apart from the array of similarly-themed works from rockers that lack her interpretative flair and jazz sensibility.

Hill will perform several numbers from I’ll See You In My Song tonight along with Becky Hobbs and other guests at Ga’Dang, which is located in the former Sole Mio restaurant building downtown.

“I’ll See You In My Song is something that I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, kind of a work in progress for years,” Hill said. “I’ve had the song ‘Sausalito In the Summertime’ quite a while, but the trick was to find songs that were jazzy and had the appropriate torch and blues feel without just doing the same old standards that you hear all the time. Then it’s a question of creating the right mood with each number. The style that I write in has always been a mix of these things — jazz, torch and blues — but I could also fit these emotions into other settings. On this project, all the songs are geared toward interpretative strengths, and on communicating moods.”

Hill explores both upbeat (“I Can Dream Can’t I,” “I Don’t Have A Care In The World”) and solemn (“Born To Be Blue,” “You’ve Ruined It For Me”) material expertly on the 14-song work, while also delving into expressive travelogue pieces (“The London I Remember”) and prototype jazz treatments (“Here’s That Rainy Day,” “That’s For Me,” “Besame Mucho”). Comfortable in any tempo or backdrop, Hill’s controlled, yet also energetic and naturally swinging style are perfectly highlighted throughout I’ll See You In My Song.

Tonight’s performance provides Hill with the ideal setting for both her originals and inspired renditions of classic pre-rock pop.

While closely examining and performing vintage material, Hill’s not forgetting about contemporary developments. She recently worked with Ben Folds on a William Shatner album and also had one of her own songs featured in The Last Songbird, a New York theatrical production, last December. She is also developing some television projects, but none of these things surpass her interest in writing and singing.

“In many ways, the torch, jazz and blues songs come the closest of all the things I do to reflecting my own personality and attitudes. People sometimes tell me that I’m moody, and I think that’s why I love doing these songs so much, because you can really express all types of moods and feelings so vividly through them.”
Source: http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?section=12&screen=news&news_id=50328

BENITA HILL/Sausalito In The Summertime
Writer: Steve Dan Mills;
Benita's mid-tempo new single is a sample from her CD I'll See You in My Song, due for release in late summer. Kirk Whalum answers her cool, laid-back vocal phrasing with some splendid sax filigrees while Kevin Madillgets his piano licks in. The whole thing sounds like a jammin' blast.
- ROBERT K. OERMANN, Music Row

A Way to Survive
Local jazz singer and country songwriter Benita Hill bounces back with a new album of hard-earned uplift

By Robert L. Doerschuk
From the Nashville Scene, Jan 15-21

Benita Hill sightings are rare these days--rarer, at least, than 15 or so years ago, when she held court at Mère Bulles and The Merchants as the city's top jazz chanteuse. Or, before that, when, as one of Two Desperate Women, she and Pam Wolfe did cabaret and comedy around town.

Eventually, though, Hill scaled back. Her responsibilities as a single mother, her shift of energy to songwriting and--one week after Garth Brooks cut her "Two Piña Coladas" (co-written with Shawn Camp and Sandy Mason)--the news that she had developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma pulled her off the stage and into a more private place.

Credit faith and chemotherapy for her survival, though the fact that Hill has kept recording and playing the occasional show owes mostly to her grit. But what's to explain her latest release, The Things That Are Real? For those accustomed to Hill's sultry, swinging music, this album, which is highlighted by dramatic, inspirational ballads that combine low-key production with showstopper choruses, suggests American Idol more than the Great American Songbook.

At her home studio, perched in the director's chair once reserved for Harlan Howard at BMI, Hill laughs and agrees with the observation. "This was a personal album," she says. "I wanted to present these songs in the most minimal way, by doing it myself here at my home, because they represent my soul journey. It was important that they come out naturally rather than arranged into some sort of style that people might identify with me."

Regardless of style, Things reflects Hill's artistic reach more fully than any of her three previous CDs, all of them available on her Watermark label. Up to this point, her songs have been strongly crafted, yet transferable enough to be picked up by Brooks, Billy Joe Royal, Billy "Crash" Craddock--pretty much anyone who could recognize and carry a worthy tune. Not so with Things, on which Hill delivers messages so personal that it might smack of presumptuousness for anyone else to adopt them.

"It wasn't anything that I planned out in advance," she says. "It's just that I'm older, I'm middle-aged and I think of things now in more universal terms than whether my music is going to be commercially accepted. It's about being content with who you are when you reach a certain time in your life, not about trying to please anybody. But that doesn't mean these songs don't have broad appeal.... I've already had women anywhere from 30 to 65 tell me they can relate a lot to what these songs say."

In other words, the Oprah demographic, that big slice of the pie represented by women who are moving from one set of self-images to another. Hill knows that diaspora well, though her own route has been far from typical. Her earliest memories are of stage outfits, show tunes and adults who, like her mother--a headliner at Chicago's famous Aragon Ballroom--lived within a swirl of show-biz glitz. Shades of those days now lie inside a box tucked away in Hill's studio.

"This is my mother," she says, dusting off a black-and-white glamour shot captioned with the name Carmen Revelle. The look is nightclub exotic, appropriate to the days of swank society and swizzle sticks. Other photos follow, all of them autographed. From Lena Horne, "To Carmen, with all the best to you." Ted Lewis signed his, "To Carmen--a swell girl." A reference from Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis to some forgotten party draws another laugh. "What do you think that's supposed to mean?"

These images were already fading in the early '50s, as Hill's mother eased away from the spotlights and the bandstands to raise her daughter. Even so, Benita began to sing, and with that came a stream of wedding gigs, coffeehouse stages, pilgrimages to swinging London, originals that caught Owen Bradley's attention and a rock 'n' roll odyssey that included a tour with the Allman Brothers. All of which contributed to the emergence of a complex identity that allowed Hill to sing down-home backup for the likes of Conway Twitty and Waylon Jennings and then to peel into a slinky gown and long white gloves for a supper club serving of Gershwin.

Hill's new album brings these elements together. "As a singer, I'm at home with jazz," she explains. "That's where my voice is most comfortable. But I think of myself as a songwriter first, which is how I approached this album. The songs were more important to me than the arrangements.... I'm not a great jazz player, but I can develop my ideas well at a simpler level, so I wanted to push those limits and see how far I could go with doing most of it on my own. It was like Woman Against Machine, but with help from Gene Eichelberger, who mastered all of my albums, I've learned how to get the best sound out of the equipment in my studio."

For Hill, taking control--aside from contributions made by guitarist Chris Leuzinger and Hill's regular keyboardist, Kevin Madill--fits right in with the theme of the project. This metaphor is beyond reproach: Few would argue that it's better to avoid challenges than to deal with them. As music, though, Things is something of a challenge itself. It's not easy to go from the hip, bluesy Benita of her first album Fan the Flame, or the hearthside purr of her holiday disc Winter Fire and Snow, to the holy Helen Reddy-ness of "I Am a Woman of Power" (" 'cause I draw my strength from the Lord"). Or to the bravura of "You Forgot That I Could Fly," the tagline of which, "to be honest, so did I," is as inevitable as it is honest.

But Hill hasn't abandoned jazz. "I'm writing all the time, and I have some wonderful new jazz things that I'm going to include on my next album," she assures. "But I would hope that everything I write is universal enough to transcend any category. It was tough to struggle for survival. I'm not doing that anymore, and I'm really grateful for that. It's just taken me a while to realize how blessed I am and to find a way to put that into my music."

Hill gets 'real' tonight
By Ron Wynn, rwynn@nashvillecitypaper.com
January 16, 2004

Anyone who’s heard any of her past projects knows Benita Hill is a remarkably eclectic and stylish vocalist and songwriter. But she demonstrates even more versatility, as well as the usual thoughtful writing and interpretative talents, on her latest release The Things That Are Real. Hill’s fourth release showcases her elegant phrasing and powerful sound on several of her favorite compositions, most of them never previously issued on disc. Hill, who’ll be performing songs from the new disc tonight during a CD release party at Davis-Kidd Booksellers, is well versed in the techniques of jazz and pre-rock singing, but she’s equally interested in and able to handle many other genres.

"I guess it’s a good thing that there’s so much interest now in jazz and jazz-flavored singing," Hill said. "But these are songs that have been close to my heart for many years, and I’m glad to be finally getting them out. My musical interests and tastes have always been very broad. Jazz is certainly important, as well as earlier styles of pop, but I’ve always been more interested in good songs than in any one style." That attitude is reflected by the quality and range of material Hill’s done since she recorded the single "You Make It Hard To Say No" for Mercury in 1987. While its been well documented that Garth Brooks recorded three of her compositions, with the single "Two Pina Coladas" eventually becoming a No. 1 hit, other accomplishments aren’t as documented. Hill was a background vocalist for the Allman Brothers in the early ‘80s, and she wrote tunes that became soul and jazz anthems for Isaac Hayes and Kirk Whalum respectively, the songs "I Loved You In Memphis" and "The Moment I Prayed." Her Christmas album Winter Fire and Snow ranks among the finest holiday releases cut anywhere, and there are plenty of requests for selections from such past CDs as Fan The Flame and Tangerine Moon.

Hill is an extremely upbeat, optimistic person who always looks ahead rather than behind. A cancer survivor who beat the disease nearly seven years ago, she currently does numerous events on behalf of charities and service organizations. Her next engagement will be the Benefit for Alive Hospice at the Bluebird Café on Wednesday, Jan. 21 with Sandy Mason, Becky Hobbs and Kasey Jones.

Fans can also follow her activities or purchase CDs directly from Hill via her Web site www.BenitaHill.com. "I’m extremely happy about this new CD and about the way things are going right now in general," she said. "I think that people now have more chances to hear good music and are getting a new appreciation for the great old songs that they may have forgotten about or just haven’t had a chance to hear."

Benita Hill - Winter Fire and Snow

Nashville jazz singer Benita Hill has made a perfectly lovely Christmas record that we'll be loving for many years to come.

Sexy and swinging takes on I'll Be Home for Christmas and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas are backed with a subtle trio and enlivened with unerring phrasing from Hill. A few modern tunes are included, like the classy title cut. In a season where albums tend to be overbearing or sticky-sweet, this sets an atmosphere for relaxing and giving. It goes down like hot cider and bourbon on a cold winter's night.

Incidentally, Hill is a cancer survivor, and $2 from every CD sold will go to support Gilda's Club and Alive Hospice. The album is available at Tower Records, the Jazz Music Store in Bellevue Center and at www.benitahill.com.

-- Craig Havighurst

I second the motion. Recorded live in the studio ("Look, ma, no digital editing!"), Hill has delivered a treasure. Stunning vocals, beautiful arrangments and complimentary musicianship by pianist/arranger Kevin Madill, bass man Jim Ferguson and drummer Bob Mater. Easily the best in this year's crop of Christmas albums, and it was made right here in Nashville. Glory be.

-- Peter Cooper