Search - Ames Brothers :: You You You (& You)

The Ames are great, as usual, but why the same old songs whe

J. Bryce | Toronto, Canada | 06/19/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"No criticism of The Ames Brothers' recordings. Were there ever 4 voices that blended so perfectly? It's always great to hear this vastly underrated group on CD but why on Earth did Living Era choose this particular selection of songs? More than two-thirds of these numbers already appear on CDs currently in circulation on "Best of" discs put out by Varese, Taragon and Jasmine. Now here we have the fourth release of these same hits. The Ames recorded hundreds of tunes and more than 30LPs (both 10" and 12") during their years with Coral and RCA. What we need is someone to put together some CDs to bring out more of their unreleased (on CD) material. Jasmine seems to be doing the best job of it so far. If I'm faced with yet another CD that contains all these same hits I'll think twice before spending money to get a mere handful of "new" songs while being given no alternative but to buy a 5th CD copy of all their same great hits. I suspect a lot of people are avoiding buying this CD for exactly that reason. I'm knocking a star off this disc because of the rather witless and unimaginative track selection on the part of Living Era's producers. As one of the top vocal acts of the 50s, The Ames Brothers could sing the phone book and they'd get my 5 stars any day of the week. Surely one of the greatest and most neglected vocal groups of all. There's an audience awaiting all the marvellous material that's still tucked away in the vaults and I wish someone would do something about it instead of just trotting out the same old titles every time.

"