Rosie Vela – Zazu (1986)

From the shelves

My favorite part of this record is the hype sticker on the cover: “Do yourself a favour, buy this record“, it says. And when I found it at a thrift shop I was more than happy to oblige.

Rosie Vela’s only album (‘Zazu’) came and went without much fanfare in 1986, written off by many as just another album by some hot model chick turned singer.

I’m happy to say that’s not the case. First of all, her songs are self-penned. No Diane Warren, no Steinberg & Kelly, no Desmond Child. And some of them are even pretty solid (‘Tonto’ is a badass jam if you’re into Shannon-like 80’s freestyle beats). Her voice is not bad either, kinda reminding me of Annie Lennox here and there. She’s backed by an impressive troop of studio rats: Donald Fagen, Walter Becker, Jimmy Haslip, Tony Levin, Rick Derringer, Jim Keltner, plus Gary Katz behind the desk.

The music is glossy 80’s pop with some good hooks, somewhere between AOR, synthpop, and the poppier Steely Dan stuff (interesting to note that this was the first time Fagen and Becker were on the same album again since the split of Steely Dan). My favorite is surely the above-mentioned ‘Tonto’, but other outstanding cuts are ‘2nd Emotion’ (it loosely resembles – and forgoes – ‘Teardrops’ by Womack & Womack), the slow and ominous title track and ‘Magic Smile’ (the most “steelydanish” song on here). Not everything on here aged well, but it’s definitely worth a shot, especially if you manage to find it for a couple of bucks.

Rosie Vela recorded a second album in 1990 and, according to a Rick Derringer interview, it was even better than this one, but was never released, as A&M was acquired by Polygram. The new label didn’t like the songs and pitched the idea of reworking them with a metal producer, hoping to turn her into Lita Ford or something like that. She asked to be released from her contract soon after.

She briefly resurfaced as a backing vocalist for ELO in the early 00’s, when she was in a relationship with ELO’s mainman Jeff Lynne. According to Google, she’s fighting some serious health issues at the moment and I hope she’ll make a full recovery. In the meantime, do yourself a favor.