Search - Ames Brothers :: Ames Brothers: Destination Moon

An interesting pairing of two Ames Brothers albums

Thomas J. Diehl | Rensselaer, NY United States | 07/05/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've been a fan of the Ames Brothers for many years, and I'm only 21 as of this writing. For years I have longed to see all of the Ames Brothers albums for Coral/Vocalion, RCA and Epic reissued on cd. I got my wish for the Epic albums finally, and this cd has taken two of the RCA albums (and a soon to be released cd on Taragon Records [who did a top notch Best of the Ames Brothers cd] has their RCA Christmas lp reissued in it's entirety for the first time in 49 years, with first time stereo mixes on many of those 1957 songs). When I first heard of this cd, i had heard that it would be coming out nearly a year before it actually did, but I didn't know what albums were going to be on it. When I finally found out, i thought "wow, what an odd pairing of albums". I can't complain, though, i was getting two of their albums on cd in their entirety.



The first lp on the cd was the reissue of their 1956 lp The Ames Brothers With Hugo Winterhalter (RCA Victor LPM-1228, 1956). 8 of those 12 songs were first released on a 10" lp from 1954 entitled "It Must Be True" (RCA Victor LPM-3186). These recordings are all 100% true mono recordings, not rechanneled stereo or fold-downs of rechanneled mixes. I did notice one song had a minor tape dropout in it, but for a 50 year old tape that was to be expected, though the dropout occured in one channel only, leading me to wonder the exact tapes used for this lp on cd. Some of my favorite songs on this album's part of the cd are The Alphabet, Ol' Man River, The Anniversary Song, and Not You Not I.



The second lp on this cd is the Destination Moon lp. With all the talk of a space race in 1960, the Ames brothers jumped on board and recorded a whole album of moon and space related songs. This album is entirely in true stereo on this cd and the sound on these tracks is fantastic. These recordings still sound great, and on vinyl this is one of the Ames Brothers most collectable albums thanks to the cover art (not to mention this one was probably their biggest selling album ever). Some of my favorite songs on this part of the cd include Beyond The Blue Horizon, I'm Shooting High, No Moon At All (a re-recording of one of their earlier Coral label hits), Destination Moon and East Of The Sun.



While this pairing of songs may be an odd choice for a cd reissue, I am very thankful these songs are even on cd. The sound is very clean on these recordings and for 45 to 50 year old master tapes they sound exceptionally well.



This cd is for any fan of the Ames Brothers hits, because it shows that the group was more than just their few comedy-styled recordings, and these can be enjoyed by almost anybody. You'll get into the music by the time the first song on the cd ends, and will stay into it until the last song is finished. It's been almost 2 years since the last reissue of two full Ames Brothers albums on cd and i can only hope that we will see more from the Ames Brothers on cd, as they had several other classic albums that deserve to be released."