Barefoot on the Beach
| Barefoot on the Beach | ||||
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| Studio album by Michael Franks | ||||
| Released | 1 June 1999 | |||
| Genre |
Smooth jazz Vocal jazz |
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| Length | 62:27 | |||
| Language | English | |||
| Label | Windham Hill Records | |||
| Producer |
Chuck Loeb Jimmy Haslip |
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| Michael Franks chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
Barefoot on the Beach is a smooth vocal jazz album by American singer-songwriter and musician Michael Franks, released in 1999 with Windham Hill Records. It was Franks' fourteenth studio album, after Abandoned Garden and prior to Watching the Snow.
Michael Franks' long-standing relationship with Warner Bros. Records (and its subsidiary Reprise Records) which began with the 1976 album The Art of Tea ended with Barefoot on the Beach. The album was his first and only release with Windham Hill Records, a Sony Music label; subsequent albums would be released with Koch (now E1 Music) and Shanachie Records. His compilation albums continued to be released with Warner Bros.
The album includes a duet with Valerie Simpson in "Now Love Has No End", and saw the return of Joe Sample and The Yellowjackets' Jimmy Haslip.
While the general mood and tone of the tracks are evocative of summer, it also contains biting commentary on Broadcast Architecture's dominance of American smooth jazz radio at the time with "Mr Smooth". Lyrics such as "some of us remember how much choice there was, before he took the throne", and "his verdict we must wait" lament the dominance and perceived heavy-handed influence of the network on the genre.
Writing for AllMusic, Jonathan Widran praised Franks' vocal style and longevity. "Countless musical trends have steamrolled by since this wry singer songwriter with the cool and collected, wistful onionskin voice first graced the adult music world in the mid-'70s [..] yet Franks has stood his ground, growing as an observational lyricist while his relaxed demeanor stays pretty much the same, and charmingly so." He concluded the album is "the kind of spring in your step music Franks fashioned his career out of."
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