Etta James's 2003 standards album *I'll Take Romance*, produced by Barry Manilow with a live orchestra recorded to two-track, captures her at seventy inhabiting rather than revering classic melodies. James remained a singer who made songs feel personally written for her, and this record—engineered to preserve her natural presence—proves that gift never diminished. Essential for anyone interested in how a great vocalist transforms repertoire into confession.
⚡ Quick Answer: Etta James's 2003 standards album "I'll Take Romance" proves that at seventy-something, she remained a singer who made songs feel personally written for her. Produced by Barry Manilow with a live orchestra recorded old-school to two-track, the album showcases James inhabiting rather than revering these melodies, with a rhythm section that listens more than it plays and engineering that captures her natural presence in the room.
There are singers who can sell a lyric, and there are singers who make you wonder if the lyric was written about them personally — Etta James at seventy-something sits firmly in the second category, and I’ll Take Romance is the record that proves it still held true in 2003.
This was her standards album, which should tell you nothing surprising and yet everything important. By the time she walked into Capitol Studios in Hollywood to make it, James had already spent fifty years turning other people’s songs into confessions. Producer Barry Manilow — yes, that Barry Manilow, and no, don’t let it put you off — understood that the job here was not to modernize her. The job was to get out of her way.
The Room She Walked Into
Manilow arranged the whole thing for a live orchestra, and the sessions were recorded largely to two-track, old-school, with everyone in the room together. That decision shows up in the music. You can hear the air moving.
Dave Grusin was an early touchstone for how Manilow was thinking about the orchestrations — lush but never syrupy, strings used for warmth rather than decoration. The rhythm section locked in tight and then went quiet whenever James needed space, which was often.
The session players were the kind of Los Angeles studio elite who can follow a singer’s breath. Bass, brushed drums, quiet piano — the band functioned less like an ensemble and more like a listening ear.
What She Does to These Songs
The title track, a 1937 Oscar Hammerstein II and Ben Oakland number, gets treated like it was written last Tuesday. James doesn’t revere these melodies; she inhabits them.
“At Last” is here, of course. She’d been recording and performing that song since 1960, and by this point in her life she had stopped performing it and started living inside it during the three and a half minutes it takes to get through. The version on this record has a gravity that earlier takes don’t quite carry.
“Imagination” is the one I keep going back to. Jimmy Van Heusen’s melody sits high in the voice and James takes it slow, slower than you’d think the song could bear, and it holds.
There’s a version of “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” where she sounds like she’s conducting a private argument with the air. It’s a minor thing that becomes a major thing by the end.
I’ll admit I came to this record skeptically. A Manilow-produced standards album for an R&B legend in her mid-sixties felt like it had the words late-career obligation stamped on the cover. It does not. This is a record about what happens when a singer has nothing left to prove and everything left to say.
Just the Voice
The engineering on this record deserves a mention. The vocal sits in the mix at a distance that feels natural — not pinned to your forehead like a modern pop record, but present the way a singer is present when they’re in the same room. Whatever microphone they put in front of James, it was the right one.
She sounds like someone who has been singing longer than most musicians have been alive and who has simply gotten better at all of it. The phrasing on the slower ballads is a masterclass in what rubato actually means in practice — not slowing down arbitrarily, but letting the time breathe exactly where the feeling requires it.
I’ll Take Romance didn’t make a lot of noise when it came out. It didn’t need to.
Further Reading
- How to Listen to Jazz for Beginners (And Actually Hear It)
- Best Sounding Jazz Albums Ever Recorded: Where to Start
🎵 Key Takeaways
- 🎙️ Etta James at 70+ inhabits rather than reveres these standards, making seventy-year-old songs feel personally written for her in real time.
- 🎻 Barry Manilow's orchestrations use Dave Grusin as a template—lush strings for warmth, not decoration—and the rhythm section listens more than it plays.
- ⏳ Recorded live to two-track in one room at Capitol Studios, the engineering captures James's natural presence with vocal placement that feels like she's actually in the room with you, not pinned to your forehead.
- 🎼 "Imagination" stretched slow enough to feel like it might collapse, and "They Can't Take That Away from Me" played like a private argument with the air—minor gestures that compound into major moments.
- 📀 This 2003 album proved that after fifty years of turning other people's songs into confessions, James had nothing left to prove and everything left to say.
Who produced Etta James's 'I'll Take Romance' and why does it matter?
Barry Manilow produced and arranged the album for a live orchestra, but he understood his job was to get out of James's way rather than modernize her sound. His orchestrations were inspired by Dave Grusin's approach—using strings for warmth rather than decoration—which allowed the focus to stay entirely on the singer.
How was 'I'll Take Romance' recorded technically?
The sessions were recorded largely to two-track, old-school, with the entire orchestra and James in the same room at Capitol Studios. This approach captured the air moving and allowed session players to follow the singer's breath, creating an intimate presence that modern recording techniques often flatten.
What makes James's interpretation of these standards different from other singers?
James doesn't perform these songs with reverence but inhabits them as if they were written about her life. By her seventies, after fifty years of recording these melodies, she had stopped singing them and started living inside them—her phrasing uses rubato not arbitrarily, but exactly where feeling requires it.
Is this album worth listening to if I'm skeptical about late-career jazz standards?
Yes—the album avoids the trap of late-career obligation precisely because James brings nothing to prove and everything to say. It's a masterclass in how a singer at the peak of her technical and interpretive powers can make a familiar song feel like a newly discovered confession.
Further Reading
- How to Listen to Jazz for Beginners (And Actually Hear It)
- Best Sounding Jazz Albums Ever Recorded: Where to Start
Further Reading