Search - Lettermen :: Absolutely the Best

Absolutely great!

Totally Honest Reviewer | USA | 03/23/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Excellent stereo sound quality due to the remastering. Definitely some of the best songs performed by The Lettermen. You can't beat their harmony on these beautiful songs."

A pretty solid collection of the best songs of the Lettermen

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 06/09/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"With the Beatles, the Supremes, and other Rock and Rhythm & Blues artists taking over the airwaves in the Sixties, older listeners latched onto the Lettermen as a way of bridging the gap between Frank Sinatra and the Rolling Stones. The Lettermen started off in the early 1960s when Jim Pike and Bob Engemann, two Brigham Young University students, hooked up with lounge singer Tony Butala, and ended up singing with Capitol Records. In 1968 Gary Pike would replace Engemann, and with their album sales and concert tours the Lettermen became one of the most successful groups for adult listeners. This can be seen in how their songs always did considerably better with adults than with general audiences. For example, "When I Fall in Love" was #7 on the Billboard Pop Charts, but made it to #1 in the Adult Contemporary Category, and you have almost the same thing with "Goin' Out of My Head/Can't Take My Eyes Off You," which went #7 and #2 respectively. Needless to say, the Lettermen always did better on the Adult Contemporary chart.



"Absolutely the Best" does include most, but not all of the songs that cracked the Top 50 on the Billboard charts, most notably "Hurt So Bad" (#12/#2), "Way You Look Tonight" (#13/#3), "Theme from 'A Summer Place'" (#16/#2), "Come Back, Silly Girl" (#17/#3), and "She Cried" (#73/#6). There are also a few songs that made the Pop Charts but apparently did not chart with the Adult Contemporary crowd, with "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" (#44), "Sherry Don't Go" (#52), and "Silly Boy (She Doesn't Love You)" (#81), just to show the range of the group I suppose. There is also a nice collection of cover songs by the Lettermen, that gives some indication of how they made modern music palatable for older listeners while also doing songs from movies and Broadway, with "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing," "Smile," "Sealed With a Kiss," "Yesterday," and "If Ever I Would Leave You." There is something to be said for a group that can do songs by both Charlie Chaplin and Lennon & McCartney.



However, from the Adult Contemporary perspective there are a couple of key songs missing, namely "Traces/Memories" (#47/#3) and "Everything Is Good About You" (#74/#6), so this 2004 collection is not perfect in that regard and there are only 15 tracks. So while you can certainly find collections that are more comprehensive, "Absolutely the Best" does cover the basics and everything a Lettermen fan would consider essentially is here on this CD. So this collection should be sufficient for most casual fans, whereas the true devotees will have all of these songs on their original albums."

SOMETHING TO SOOTHE THE EARS

M. J. Rossiter | UK | 10/05/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"IT WAS LOVELY TO JUST SIT AND LISTEN TO SOMETHING GENTLE INSTEAD OF THE THUMPING SO CALLED MUSIC WE HAVE THRUST UPON US TODAY. I SPEND MOST OF MY TV VIEWING WITH THE REMOTE READY TO MUTE NOISY COMMERCIALS, AS IT SEEMS SO MANY PRODUCERS SEEM TO THINK WE ARE ALL DEAF.

THIS ALBUM I FOUND QUITE RESTFUL, AND ALSO KNOWING MOST OF THE SONGS ON IT, I SANG ALONG WITH IT IN THE CAR.

WE ALL NEED JUST A LITTLE BIT OF PEACE THESE DAYS,I THINK"