Search - Della Reese :: Forever Gold

Forever Gold?

Reno Baldomero | 01/08/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The title is slighty misleading, as the compilation doesn't include any of her gold-selling singles, except for "In the Still of Night", which she recorded for Jubilee records in 1954. Let me make this quite plain. This album is another budget collection by a small label, with the almost exact same tracks as the others ("All of Me", "Touch of Class", "It's Over Now" and more), but this one stands out, if slightly, by cutting down on tracks from her 1985 album "Sure Like Lovin' You", and instead adding more tracks from her Jubilee years. One of those tracks is one of the very first recorded versions of "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", and a stunning take of Irving Berlin's "All Alone". Others are the usual live tracks from her "A Date with Della" album, "Stormy Weather" from her 1959 album "The Story of the Blues", an oddly edited version of "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" from her 1958 gospel album "Amen!", and the title track from her debut album from 1957 "My Melancholy Baby". The cover is beautiful, but simple. The sleeve is one page only, and doesn't include any liner notes or pictures. The sound varies from ok to bad. The tracks from "Sure Like Lovin' You" have some of the worst sound I have ever heard on a CD. These small quibbles aside, this album manages to stand out from the rest of the MANY budget compilations almost"