AT the outset of her career in the early 80’s Natalie Merchant quickly became the darling of the American college music circuit with her preppy appeal and understated but quite definite sex appeal fronting the group 10,000 Maniacs who went on to enjoy enormous critical and commercial success around the world with great albums like ‘In My Tribe’, ‘Blind Man Zoo’, ‘Our Time In Eden’ and ‘MTV Unplugged’.

Merchant left the Maniacs in 1993, at a time when the band’s star was still shining ever so brightly, to pursue her solo career which has seen her profile and status within the music business soar to even greater heights.

‘Tigerlily’(1995) was her debut solo album release which sold more than four million copies worldwide and saw Merchant scooping a good number of industry awards along the way too.

In the ensuing years the singer/songwriter released a further four albums, ‘Orphelia’(1998), ‘Natalie Merchant Live(1999), Motherland(2001) and the independently issued(on her own record label) ‘The House Carpenter’s Daughter, all of which garnered more huge critical acclaim and saw Merchant well and truly established as one of the most respected and foremost female artists of her generation whose quality control was always second to none.

In 2003 Merchant gave birth to her daughter Lucia and began a long break from both recording and touring whilst she retreated to her farmstead in upstate New York to devote her attention to motherhood more or less full-time.

Merchant has been sorely missed by her legions of fans and the industry itself during the period of her long sabbatical but the very good news is she’s now back with a most ambitious new album, ‘Leave Your Sleep’(Nonesuch), that marks a stunning return to top form .

Although she has been publicly absent from the music world for what seems like an age, for the past seven years Merchant has been quietly but meticulously researching, writing and recording ‘Leave Your Sleep’ which she refers to as “a project about childhood” and “the most elaborate project I have ever completed or imagined.”

The album is one that Merchant has actually paid for herself, out of personal savings and from the proceeds of the sale of her home in Hawaii and though it’s licensed through a subsidiary of Warners for distribution purposes, Merchant owns it outright.

Her ‘bravery’, in decidedly difficult times within the music industry, deserves to be fully rewarded and if there is any justice, it will be since it is a work of such diversity and rich quality which in truth, is nothing less than all those who have so admired her back catalogue have to expect from the singer/songwriter.

‘Leave Your Sleep’ is a concept album that in any less capable hands than Merchant’s could, and, in all likelihood, probably would have gone horribly wrong for, on paper, it sounds arguably overly ambitious and lacking in mainstream appeal. What Merchant has done on this 2CD, whopping, twenty-six track album is expertly adapt a series of nursery rhymes, lullabies, poems and verse and transform and generally re-invent them by setting them within the context of a wide array of musical arrangements and genres that includes jazz, folk, country, bluegrass, klezmer, reggae, blues, chamber orchestral and even world rhythms from China to the Balkans, all the time managing to retain the childhood theme yet simultaneously imbuing it with a great degree of sophistication.

And what stitches the whole, absorbing album together is that unmistakable alluring, richly expressive, always engaging, honey-toned voice of Miss Merchant’s.

With each successive listen to ‘Leave Your Sleep’, little nuances that you probably miss first and even second or third time around continue to reveal themselves as the songs are fully exposed through their layers.

And the singer/songwriter has afforded the album added class by collaborating with and, surrounding herself by a broad spectrum of artists/musicians such as the Wynton Marsalis Quartet, members of the New York Philharmonic, The Klezmatics and Irish folk band Lunasa to name just a few of the cast of 130.

The end result is such a satisfying affair; it’s like the aural equivalent of indulging in and enjoying the nicest chocolate fudge cake ever.

Don’t allow yourself to resist a slice of ‘Leave Your Sleep’, it’ll leave you feeling good about most everything. Welcome back Natalie.

Way back in 1973, having a few years earlier detached herself from The Supremes to go it alone, Diana Ross was just about the biggest female singer around. At the time Ross was revelling in the glory of an Oscar nomination for her most accurate and searing portrayal of Billie Holiday in the film ‘Lady Sings The Blues’, the soundtrack of which also gave Miss Ross a No.1 album. And now everyone speculated about the direction the singing superstar would steer her career next.

The album ‘Touch Me In The Morning’ provided all the answers with Ross back blazing the pop/soul trail. The gorgeous title track, featuring one of Ross’ best ever vocal performances, gave her a No. 1 hit single and most of the songs on ‘Touch Me…..’ were reflective of the time - ballads about love lost and found and classy covers of songs by Marvin Gaye(Brown Baby/Save The Children), The Carpenters(I Won’t Last A Day Without You) and John Lennon(Imagine).

‘Touch Me In The Morning’ has now been reissued in a sumptuous, new expanded format that offers the listener a whole lot more than just the original album repackaged and remastered.

As well as bonus tracks of previously unreleased mixes of songs from the ‘Touch Me…’ recording sessions(All Of My Life, We Need You & Leave A Little Room), there’s also a pair of alternate versions of the album title track that demonstrates Ross’s versatility in the studio.

As with so many classic albums, there was more to the story for when the sessions for ‘Touch Me…’ began, Ross had been working on two other records at the same time: one, ‘Blue’, was to be a continuation of the jazz-inflected recordings she inhabited for the ‘Lady Sings….’ projects; the other was ‘To The Baby’, a collection of songs inspired by her newborn baby daughter Rhonda.

And it is the inclusion of the ‘To The Baby’ album in its entirety on the second CD of this reissue which will no doubt be of particular interest to the singer’s dedicated fans. Featured on this are previously unreleased covers of Michael Jackson’s ‘Got To Be There’ and ‘Roberta Flack’s ‘First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, as well as the original title tune, written by Diana’s brother Arthur ‘T-Boy’ Ross.

Listening to ‘To The Baby’ now in 2010 alongside ‘Touch Me In The Morning’, I think it’s fair to say that Miss Ross absolutely made the right decision to release the latter album at the time for although ‘To The Baby’ is sweet and has its moments, there just aren’t enough of them and overall it’s a tad too gushing and sentimental in tone.

‘Touch Me In The Morning: Expanded Edition’(Hip-O-Select/Universal Music) does score very highly in terms of its packaging with the set coming complete with a lavish booklet containing rare photos and memorabilia, the story behind both albums, and quotes from Ross’s manager Shelly Berger, producer Deke Richards, and from Diana Ross herself.

A worthy purchase just to hear the pristine quality of the remastered original release alone.