| Sugar | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Leon Redbone |
| Cover: | Sugar (Leon Redbone album).jpg |
| Released: | 1990 |
| Recorded: | 1990 |
| Studio: | Manhattan Recording Company, Soundtrack Studios New York |
| Genre: | Jazz, blues |
| Length: | 34:59 |
| Label: | Private Music |
| Producer: | Beryl Handler, Leon Redbone |
| Prev Title: | Christmas Island |
| Prev Year: | 1988 |
| Next Title: | Live! |
| Next Year: | 1991 |
Sugar is an album by the musician Leon Redbone, released in 1990.[1] [2] Redbone supported the album with a North American tour.[3] A video was shot for "So, Relax".[4]
Redbone used ribbon microphones during the recording sessions. Ken Peplowski played saxophone and clarinet. Cindy Cashdollar contributed on dobro; Dan Barrett on trombone.[5] "Right or Wrong" and "Ghost of the St. Louis Blues" are versions of songs made famous by Emmett Miller; Redbone considered Miller to be a chief influence on the album, and thought about writing a book on the musician.[6] [7] [8] Redbone's guitar playing was influenced by Blind Blake.[9] "Pretty Baby" is a version of the Tony Jackson song.[10]
Redbone wrote three of the album's songs.[11] He included "The Whistling Colonel" after a movie studio instead chose to use one of his older songs on a soundtrack.[12]
The Chicago Tribune deemed the album "another quaint and charming set shaped by the minstrel tunes, blues and jazz of the early 1900s."[13] The Calgary Herald recommended the album "for those who like their aural history lessons arch." The Edmonton Journal stated that "shades of Django Reinhardt, New Orleans, gutbucket blues, dixie, Broadway and bluegrass sounds are somehow stitched together with loving care."[14]
The Gazette concluded that "if a Bugs Bunny cartoon could sing, Leon Redbone's voice would bubble out of its technicolor throat."[15] The Washington Post noted the absence of "the kind of nimble fingerstyle guitar arrangements Redbone previously devised to revive songs."[6]