04/05/08
FLARE
TONY MARTIN/At the Copacabana: Billed as a legendary night, Martin was in top form doing that 50s entertainment thing. Hitting all the right notes on all the right songs, Martin and the Copa crew serve up vocalizing that would make Johnny Fontaine proud. With a nice fat card of songs you know, this is a fun journey through the past.
265
GOGI GRANT/More Than Forever: You don’t see a lot of fat Grant collections so this is something special for oldies fans. With her leading singles leading the way, there’s 25 original version all told to sate any hard core 50s female vocal fan that wants to enjoy his music the old fashioned way, without having to hunt for downloads and pay per track. Solidly programmed, this is a real 50’s treat.
270
NIGHTINGALES CAN SING THE BLUES/various: This collection could have come with a bonus razor blade as a gaggle of 50s thrushes sing about heartbreak in non stop fashion. Stacked harder than a Varese oldies collection, you get the front line names chiming in, but you also get a boatload of gals from deep in the past as well. When you’re really in one of those Haagan-Dasz moods, this is the collection to have playing along.
9002
PEGGY LEE/Taking a Chance on Love: This is a mighty cool collection for the Lee collector as most of these tracks have never been on cd and many of them have never been released as well. A collection of World Program Service transcriptions, this is Lee at the height of her powers doing a raft of killer songs in versions you’ve never heard. That’s some pretty special stuff for any serious vocal collector. No matter how you slice it, it’s a solid collection throughout.
269
DIAHANN CARROLL/This is What I Call Love: Going deep here as Flare unearths her original 1950s RCA recordings, we find riding along with Harold Arlen at the time as she was far from establishing her own personality yet, she brings personality to the songs, and does the right thing on all the tracks. Clearly a tasty glimpse of things to come.
260
SHOUT! FACTORY
MICKEY HART/At the Edge; Mystery Box; Superlingua; Planet Drum; Diga Rhythm Band: Ok malcontents, step up and correct me since Nonesuch Explorer and Folkways were doing international music long before Hart “invented” world beat but Diga was pretty much the original world beat album as we know the format, and nobody knew what to do with it at the time. Jerry Garcia doing world beat, huh? Anyway, here we are over 30 years later and Hart is still going strong, giving some of the key albums of his canon a new spiffing. Whether you’re an armchair traveler or more, these Grammy winning sets sparkle with the drum leading the way as Hart takes you on a raft of sonic adventures. Whether you’re new to this or not, this is really cool, real alternative stuff that you need to check out to give your ears a good opening.
Volume 31/Number 157
April 5, 2008
MIDWEST RECORD
830 W. Route 22 #144
Lake Zurich, IL., 60047
CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher
©2008 Midwest Record