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The Guy Lombardo Of Fifties/Sixties Music Given The Curb Tre

Tom Willett | 09/14/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As the title of this review suggests, if Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians gave us "the sweetest music this side of heaven" throughout the Thirties and Forties, then Billy Vaughn kept some of us sane during the raucous decade of the 50s and the early part of the 60s with his melodic sounds. His 12 Top 40 pop hits from 1955 to 1962 followed hard on the heels of his three-year tenure with The Hilltoppers singing group where he also contributed to ten more hits from 1952 to 1954.



After leaving the group to become Dot's musical director in 1955 (they would have six more Top 40 hits between 1955 and 1957) he not only chalked up those 12 hits of his own, but his orchestra was a prominent part of many of the hits of Pat Boone, Tab Hunter, The Fontane Sisters, and Gale Storm, among others, including the three put out by the venerable old actor Walter Brennan (of TV's The Real McCoys fame) in 1960 and 1962.



Anything by Billy Vaughn was readily discernible within the opening few bars and, without exception, charted or uncharted as singles, ALL of his music is thoroughly enjoyable.



The only thing keeping me from giving the CD at least 4 stars is Curb's usual habit of including only ten or eleven songs in their compilations and virtually nothing in the way of liner notes (exactly that here - nothing), and their habit of screwing up on at least one track. As another reviewer pointed out, track 8 in this collection is NOT When The White Lilacs Bloom Again, but rather a tune called Morning Mist. Nice as it is, it not only wasn't among his "greatest hits" it wasn't even the flipside of one!



However, the sound is excellent and it does contain BOTH sides of the wonderful Ken Nordine-narrated hit The Shifting, Whispering Sands, a # 5 Billboard Pop Top 100 in the fall of 1955, to go along with his first hit ever, Melody Of Love, which began its climb up the charts in December 1954 and eventually reached # 2 Top 100 in early 1955 b/w Joy Ride. Sail Along Silvery Moon was another solid hit, reaching # 5 Top 100 in late 1957/early 1958 b/w Raunchy (also here), a # 10 Top 100 on its own.



A Swingin' Safari, written by Bert Kaempfert, made it to # 5 Adult Contemporary (AC)/# 13 Hot 100 in late summer 1962 b/w Indian Love Call, while Wheels settled in at # 28 Hot 100 in March 1961 b/w The Orange Blossom Special, itself a # 63 Hot 100 - but excluded here. The above-mentioned When The White Lilacs Bloom Again had been a solid # 18 Top 100 back in October 1956 b/w Spanish Diary, but clearly whoever put this together for Curb was not familiar with the tune and never noticed the error.



Another mistake was listing track 9 as Mack The Knife. It's the correct tune, but was recorded by Billy as A Theme From (The Threepenny Opera) "Moritat" - one of many hit recordings of that classic - and in his case went to # 37 Top 100 in early 1956 b/w Little Boy Blue (a # 78 Top 100 and excluded here). His version of the old standard Tumbling Tumbleweeds made it to # 30 Top 100 in spring 1958 b/w a new instrumental version of his old Hilltoppers hit, Trying, which also charted at # 77 (but isn't here either). Blue Hawaii was a # 37 Hot 100 in early 1959 b/w Tico Tico.



A couple of greater hits for Billy than some of the above, but not included, are La Paloma (# 20 in late summer 1958) and Look For A Star (# 19 in July 1960)."