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In a career spanning six decades and over 30 albums, singer-pianist-songwriter Blossom Dearie (1924-2009) garnered attention from popular song’s finest writers including Michel Legrand, Bob Dorough, and Johnny Mercer and musicians such as Miles Davis and Bill Evans.  A self-described “songwriter’s singer” and “jazz musician learning to be a jazz singer,” Dearie recorded for the Verve, Capitol, and Fontana labels before striking out with her own Daffodil Records; she also made numerous guest appearances on producer Ben Bagley’s Revisited series of songwriter anthologies.  Now, the U.K.’s Universal Music Recordings will celebrate an often-overlooked period of her career with the June 30 release of Discover Who I Am: The Fontana Years London 1966-1970. The 6-CD box set includes four original albums (each one of which is expanded with non-LP singles) plus two bonus discs with 27 previously unreleased recordings.

Though Margrethe Blossom Dearie was born in New York, Europe played a formative role in her musical history.  She moved to Paris in 1952 and found her earliest successes there, performing with the vocal group The Blue Stars and scoring a French-language hit with a version of “Lullaby of Birdland” arranged by Michel Legrand.  After returning home from France, she launched her first label affiliation with Verve Records where she recorded six albums of jazz, popular standards, and Broadway showtunes (including a well-received tribute to the legendary lyricist team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green).  Following one-offs for the small Hires label and considerably larger Capitol Records, Dearie relocated to London where she befriended such admirers as John Lennon and Georgie Fame.  Always a forward-thinking artist, she set up her own publishing firm and inked a deal with Fontana Records for four albums in which she would bring her distinctively wispy, coquettish vocals and jazz sensibility to a wide range of contemporary pop songs.

Those four albums form the crux of the upcoming box set.  1966’s  Blossom Time at Ronnie Scott’s found her at the famous jazz haunt leading a trio with bassist Jeff Clyne and drummer Jimmy Butts for a wide-ranging set in which she drew on the catalogues of famous friends such as Johnny Mercer (“Satin Doll,” “When the World Was Young,” 1965 Oscar winner “The Shadow of Your Smile”), Michel Legrand (“Once Upon a Summertime”), and Cy Coleman (“When in Rome”) as well as Brill Building pop (Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil’s “On Broadway”), future cabaret classics (Dave Frishberg’s wry “I’m Hip”), and established standards (Noel Coward’s “Mad About the Boy,” Rodgers and Hart’s “Everything I’ve Got”).

1967’s Sweet Blossom Dearie featured back-cover testimonials from Ronnie Scott, Richard Rodney Bennett, and Scott Walker, and found her in back in the intimate live setting with a new group of songs from some of the same writers including Coleman (“You Turn Me On, Baby”) and Frishberg (“Sweet Lover No More,” “Peel Me a Grape”) plus some well-chosen showtunes (Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane’s “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,” Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen’s “I’ll Only Miss Him When I Think of Him,” Harold Arlen and Truman Capote’s “A Sleepin’ Bee”) and her own tribute to a U.K. singing sensation (“Sweet Georgie Fame”).  Sweet Blossom Dearie has never appeared on CD outside of Japan.

Later that year, the studio album Soon It’s Gonna Rain showcased a different side of the singer, featuring orchestral accompaniment by Reg Guest and decidedly modern songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David (“Trains and Boats and Planes,” “Alfie”), Antonio Carlos Jobim (“Meditation,” “Dindi,” “How Insensitive,” “Once I Loved”), and Bobby Hebb (“Sunny”) as well as a tip of the hat to Legrand (“Watch What Happens”) and Rodgers and Hammerstein (South Pacific‘s “A Wonderful Guy”).  Her own “I Was Looking for You” appears, too.  Soon It’s Gonna Rain, named for Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s beautiful song from The Fantasticks, has never previously appeared on CD.

1970’s That’s Just the Way I Want to Be, the final LP in Dearie’s quartet of albums for Fontana, was a very different affair.  Produced by Pete King with the orchestra of Brian Gascoigne, it was almost entirely co-written by Dearie with Sandra Harris, Arthur King, and Jim Council.  The album introduced “Dusty Springfield,” Dearie’s tribute to the singer which bears a co-writing credit for Dusty’s then-partner Norma Tanega, and the sweet and breezy “Hey, John,” directed at Mr. Lennon.  She also included a studio version of “Sweet Georgie Fame.”  Dearie co-authored “Long Daddy Green” with Dave Frishberg; the only outside material came from Joni Mitchell (the oft-recorded “Both Sides Now”), Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretzmer (“Yesterday When I Was Young”), and John Wallowitch (“Will There Really Be a Morning,” a setting of an Emily Dickinson poem).  With nods to folk, baroque pop, jazz, and cabaret, it’s one of the most beguiling records in Dearie’s discography.  Its previously only been available on CD in Japan.

The 27 bonus tracks which premiere on the fifth and sixth discs of this set were discovered following Dearie’s death in her East Durham, New York home.  Dates and personnel details are scant on these tracks, made with Ronnie Scott’s organization, but they feature more Blossom originals, among them “Feeling Good Being Me,” “Inside a Silent Tear,” and another rendition of “Long Daddy Green.”  Covers delivered in the singular Dearie style are also prevalent.  There’s more from Bacharach and David (“What the World Needs Now Is Love,” “The Windows of the World”), Antonio Carlos Jobim (“Wave”), and Dave Frishberg (a unique recording of “I’m Hip”) as well as tunes from George Harrison (“Something”), Jimmy Webb (“Didn’t We”), Paul Simon (“The 59th Street Bridge Song”), Buffy Sainte-Marie (“Until It’s Time for You to Go”), Frank Loesser (“If I Were a Bell”), and Rodgers and Hammerstein (“My Favorite Things”).  In Dearie’s hands, these disparate songs all feel of a piece.

Audio for the collection has been mastered by Simon Gibson at Abbey Road, and the discs are presented in a hardback book featuring a new essay by Dearie’s friend Jaime Smith of her Daffodil Records label.  Previously unpublished photos provided by her niece and nephew are also showcased.  Blossom Dearie was an American original who found much of her success and fame abroad; this collection is the first comprehensive look at this period of her fascinating career.

Discover Who I Am: The Fontana Years 1966-1970 arrives from Universal Music Recordings on June 30.  Her recording of “I Like London in the Rain” from That’s Just the Way I Want to Be is now streaming. You’ll find the complete track listing and pre-order links below.

Blossom Dearie, Discover Who I Am: The Fontana Years London 1966-1970 (UMR, 2023) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1: Blossom Time at Ronnie Scott’s (Fontana STL 5352, 1966)

1. On Broadway
2. When The World Was Young
3. When In Rome
4. The Shadow of Your Smile
5. Everything I’ve Got Belongs to You
6. Once Upon a Summertime
7. I’m Hip
8. Mad About the Boy
9. The Shape of Things
10. Satin Doll
11. Wallflower Lonely, Cornflower Blue (Single B-side) (Fontana TF 719, 1966)

CD 2: Sweet Blossom Dearie (Fontana LP STL 5399, 1967)

1. Let’s Go Where the Grass Is Greener
2. You Turn Me On Baby
3. Sleeping Bee
4. Sweet Lover No More
5. Sweet Georgie Fame
6. That’s No Joke
7. Peel Me A Grape
8. One Note Samba
9. On A Clear Day You Can See Forever
10. I’ll Only Miss Him When I Think of Him
11. Big City’s for Me
12. You’re Gonna Hear from Me
13. Moonlight Saving Time (Single A-side) (Fontana TF 813, 1967)

CD 3: Soon It’s Gonna Rain (Fontana LP STL 5454, 1967)

1. A Wonderful Guy
2. Trains and Boats and Planes
3. Alfie
4. Meditation
5. How Insensitive
6. Soon It’s Gonna Rain
7. Sunny
8. Watch What Happens
9. I Was Looking for You
10. Dindi
11. Once I Loved
12. The Folks Who Live on the Hill
13. The Music Played (Single A-side) (Fontana TF 934, 1968)
14. Discover Who I Am (Single B-side) (Fontana TF 934, 1968)

CD 4: That’s Just the Way I Want to Be (Fontana LP 6309 015, 1970)

1. That’s Just the Way I Want To Be
2. Long Daddy Green
3. Sweet Surprise
4. Hey John
5. Sweet Georgie Fame
6. Both Sides Now
7. Dusty Springfield
8. Will There Really Be a Morning
9. I Know the Moon
10. Inside A Silent Tear
11. Yesterday When I Was Young
12. I Like London in the Rain
13. Hey John (Single A-side)
14. 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy) (Single B-side) (Fontana TF 986, 1968)

CD 5: Feeling Good, Being Me: The Lost and Found London Sessions (Part I)

1. Upside Down (Rings and Things)
2. Favourite Things
3. The Joker
4. What the World Needs Now
5. What Is
6. Long Daddy Green (instrumental)
7. The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)
8. Wave
9. Something
10. Long Daddy Green
11. Feeling Good Being Me
12. I Was Looking for You
13. Ask Yourself Why

CD 6: Feeling Good, Being Me: The Lost and Found London Sessions (Part I)

1. Now That We’re Here
2. Didn’t We
3. Windows of the World
4. Discover Who I Am
5. Hey John
6. While We’re Lovin’ Baby
7. Let it Be Me
8. Inside A Silent Tear
9. Woe Is Me
10. Inside Out
11. You Have Lived in Autumn
12. I’m Hip
13. If I Were a Bell
14. Until It’s Time for You to Go