Search - Frankie Laine :: Hitmaker

THE WORLD OF FRANKIE LAINE

Michael Pendragon | New York, NY United States | 12/21/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The songs on this album are from the same remakes that appear on at least a half a dozen other FL albums on the market. Based on the track list, I'm pretty sure that they come from a 1982 recording session in Nashville (for a Dutch label) that was a hit in Europe. That album was THE WORLD OF FRANKIE LAINE, and despite being 69 at the time, Laine's voice stands up to his original performances. The orchestration falls a bit short of the great Columbia originals, but doesn't detract from the songs.It's great to hear Frankie Laine sing some of his old hits (and, except for DON'T FENCE ME IN*, they were all hits) 30 years later and with a voice that has been hardly touched by time. (*However, this is the recording of DON'T FENCE ME IN that was recently used over the credits of the Australian film CHOPPER.)As to the review below, I realize that it can be disappointing to discover that the songs are not the originals (I'd made the same mistake with a different repackaging of these tracks), but once you've got the originals in your collection, it's great to have these remakes alongside of them. Most of the songs were done in a similar style to the originals, with the exception of JEZEBEL which disappoints (though not through any lack of power in Laine's voice -- he was still delivering powerhouse performances in the 1990s, as witnessed by his WHEELS OF A DREAM album, 1998).For the record, THE BEAR FAMILY has 3 box sets of FL originals currently available (covering his years at ATLAS, BELTONE, MERCURY and COLUMBIA years from 1944-1963). Completists need only to add the double cd SETTING THE STANDARDS (his complete radio transcriptions) for a comprehensive collection. A 4th box set from BEAR FAMILY is said to be in the works."