Kay was at the top of her game during her relatively brief stay at RCA, as each of the selections on this collection will attest. She's indeed blessed with a formidable instrument, powerful pipes that unfailingly project to the back row. But she tends to be a belter in the Tucker-Merman tradition, often sacrificing subtlety of expression or personal communicativeness to the production of sound and execution of a frequently "over-arranged" arrangement.
And the arrangements don't always do her a lot of favors. Many of the standards on this collection, though pleasurable to revisit, remind me of preferred alternative versions by Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Lee Wiley, Jo Stafford, Doris Day and others. "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams" is a case in point: a swinger that's not merely taken at an overly fast tempo but is so full of starts and stops that you can't help but wonder if Spike Jones had a hand in arranging it. Then there are gratuitous additions, Ink Spots-style singers that may make for an engaging show but do little for repeated listening. When Kay sings "I Want a Little Boy," it's hard for the listener to "feel" that want or, to put it another way, to want to be that little boy. When she sings about long and lonely nights without "My Buddy," it's hard to believe the expressed anguish or the promised cure are as important to her as the selling of the song.
Occasionally, some sense of genuine passion and a hint of vulnerability come through--"Body and Soul," "It's Funny," "We Three" (my personal favorite of the entire collection)--but for the most part the material on this disc is all pitched at a loud, mono-dimensional level. Unless a Nelson Riddle or Gordon Jenkins can be secured to supply the orchestral arrangements, I think one of the best "exercises" for any singer is to occasionally work with a piano trio, being alert and responsive to the "in-the-moment" contributions of each of the three instrumentalists. That, and pretending that you're singing to someone who's with you in a small room seated no more than several feet directly in front of you. With the art of American popular song, as Billie Holiday or Peggy Lee demonstrated time and again, "less" is more.
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Track Listings
1 | Little With Lies |
2 | Fit As A Fiddle |
3 | I'm Confessin' |
4 | Georgia On My Mind |
5 | Jump For Joy |
6 | Blue And Sentimental |
7 | A Hundred Years From Today |
8 | Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams |
9 | I Want A Little Boy |
10 | My Buddy |
11 | Without A Song |
12 | Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang Of Mine |
13 | The Glory Of Love |
14 | I'll Never Say 'Never Again' Again |
15 | Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?) |
16 | It's Funny To Everyone But Me |
17 | Once More |
18 | We Three (My Echo, My Shadow And Me) |
19 | The Lonesome Road |
20 | Till We Meet Again |
Editorial Reviews
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Product details
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- Language : English
- Package Dimensions : 5.55 x 4.97 x 0.54 inches; 2.83 Ounces
- Manufacturer : Collector's Choice
- Date First Available : February 11, 2007
- Label : Collector's Choice
- ASIN : B00000J8PK
- Number of discs : 1
- Customer Reviews:
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3.8 out of 5 stars
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Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2008
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2017
Marty Wekser made this compilation in 1998, long since superseded by integral album rereleases and less restrictive anthologies that are cross-licensed and include Starr rarities. The playlist concentrates on Kay's choicer RCA album cuts (as against hit singles), these four RCA albums (including the superior BLUE STARR and I HEAR THE WORD) being readily available on two indispensable Collectors' Choice CDs. Ripped out of album context, the compiler's choices are solid, including the devastating ballad keepers "Blue and sentimental," "Hundred years from today" and "It's funny to everyone but me." Kay Starr was a Hoagy Carmichael specialist, and "Georgia on my mind" appears here--but not her tastier RCA takes on his bucolic "Lazy bones" and "Rockin' chair." (She also laid down a killer "Lazy river" for Capitol on the volatile MOVIN'! travelogue album, and her deep-soul take on Hoagy's "Washboard blues" has become one of the most wanted Kay Starr collectables.)
The only unique track here is the great Youmans-Rose-Eliscu 1929 standard "Without a song," recorded with Hal Mooney's orchestra in a frenetic cha-cha chart in July 1955 but withheld by RCA until the last day of 1959. It finally surfaced as filler on a cheap Camden vinyl compilation, and Starr completists may currently (and reluctantly) collect it on the 2007 Jasmine twofer SONGS BY KAY STARR, ably curated by Drew Blackburn (the set smartly also includes Carmichael's "A woman likes to be told"). Apart from the Youmans song, this Wekser sampler is completely superseded, and its illegible tray and booklet art, in biliously contrasting colors, is credited to Michael Caprio who ought have known better.
The only unique track here is the great Youmans-Rose-Eliscu 1929 standard "Without a song," recorded with Hal Mooney's orchestra in a frenetic cha-cha chart in July 1955 but withheld by RCA until the last day of 1959. It finally surfaced as filler on a cheap Camden vinyl compilation, and Starr completists may currently (and reluctantly) collect it on the 2007 Jasmine twofer SONGS BY KAY STARR, ably curated by Drew Blackburn (the set smartly also includes Carmichael's "A woman likes to be told"). Apart from the Youmans song, this Wekser sampler is completely superseded, and its illegible tray and booklet art, in biliously contrasting colors, is credited to Michael Caprio who ought have known better.
Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2013
The tracks on this compilation are taken from the following RCA/Victor Lps:
THE ONE THE ONLY, RCA/Victor LPM 1149 (Dec. 1955) -- nine tracks
BLUE STARR, RCA/Victor LPM 1549 (Oct. 1957) -- five tracks
ROCKIN' WITH KAY, RCA/Victor LPM 1720 (June, 1958) -- five tracks
and track #11 lifted from an RCA/Camden budget Lp, KAY STARR, RCA/Camden CAL 567
All tracks are mono. Unlike RCA's not-jazz New York big sound pop feel for Kay's 45 singles for the label (think those Eddie Fisher air raid siren vocals with Hugo Winterhalter's 'red-line the recording meter production' blasting away, such as "Lady of Spain" and "Oh My Papa"), these tracks were recorded with a jazz feeling, though with less swing, less top-of-the-line flash that's evident on albums like MOVIN' and her Capitol periods generally. Kay's RCA tenure reminds me somewhat of Keely Smith making three killer albums for Capitol at the end of the '50s, then Keely going to Randy Wood's more sedate (er, dull) Dot label for OK albums in the early '60s--good, but not great.
At the moment, you can likely locate some excellent reissue 2-fer CD packages of Kay's four RCA/Victor albums, which cover the depth of this OK package and then some.
3 1/2 stars.
THE ONE THE ONLY, RCA/Victor LPM 1149 (Dec. 1955) -- nine tracks
BLUE STARR, RCA/Victor LPM 1549 (Oct. 1957) -- five tracks
ROCKIN' WITH KAY, RCA/Victor LPM 1720 (June, 1958) -- five tracks
and track #11 lifted from an RCA/Camden budget Lp, KAY STARR, RCA/Camden CAL 567
All tracks are mono. Unlike RCA's not-jazz New York big sound pop feel for Kay's 45 singles for the label (think those Eddie Fisher air raid siren vocals with Hugo Winterhalter's 'red-line the recording meter production' blasting away, such as "Lady of Spain" and "Oh My Papa"), these tracks were recorded with a jazz feeling, though with less swing, less top-of-the-line flash that's evident on albums like MOVIN' and her Capitol periods generally. Kay's RCA tenure reminds me somewhat of Keely Smith making three killer albums for Capitol at the end of the '50s, then Keely going to Randy Wood's more sedate (er, dull) Dot label for OK albums in the early '60s--good, but not great.
At the moment, you can likely locate some excellent reissue 2-fer CD packages of Kay's four RCA/Victor albums, which cover the depth of this OK package and then some.
3 1/2 stars.