Eartha Kitt’s third album, Down to Eartha, missed the charts in 1955, but RCA Victor Records tried again in 1956 with Thursday’s Child, a typical collection that found the exotic arch-seductress crooning in multiple languages and multiple musical styles. Among the more notable selections were an English-language vocal version of the recent Nelson Riddle instrumental hit “Lisbon Antigua (In Old Lisbon)” and a rendition of “Lazy Afternoon” from the recent Broadway musical The Golden Apple. Inevitably, there were a couple of novelties to exploit Kitt’s promiscuous gold-digger image, as she wooed millionaires and their money in “Just an Old-Fashioned Girl” and “If I Can’t Take It with Me When I Go.” There may not have been enough Americans still intrigued by Kitt to make Thursday’s Child a domestic hit, but RCA may have been figuring that world-wide sales justified the effort; certainly, there seemed to be a songs for South American and European exploitation here, as well as North America. More important for the singer herself, the album provided a repertoire that would help make her an equally welcome nightclub entertainer in New York, Paris, West Berlin, and Rio de Janeiro. – William Ruhlmann
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