Search - Sammy Jr. Davis :: Greatest Hits Live

Peculiar song selection includes six of Sammy's best

Daniel Jolley | Shelby, North Carolina USA | 03/16/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This Greatest Hits, Live CD features an interesting collection of Sammy performances. The first six songs are quite likely the best performances of some of Sammy's best songs of all time. Mr. Bojangles is incredibly moving, as is the electric I've Gotta Be Me, which I consider as one of Sammy's lesser de facto theme songs. A fun performance of The Candy Man transitions strangely (as Sammy acknowledges to the audience) into the very best performance of What Kind of Fool Am I? I have ever heard. The Birth of the Blues was always a show-stopper, and the live edition included here is thrilling. Then there is Rock-A-Bye Your Baby, a song all variety singers are pretty much required to sing at some point; given this fact, Sammy decides to let the audience hear a few people who have never sung it give it a try. Among Sammy's many immense talents was the ability to impersonate the voices of others, and this version of Rock-A-Bye Your Baby contains his best imitations ever. Sammy does Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, and Jerry Lewis, but it is his dead-on Dean Martin impersonation that makes this utterly amazing and highly entertaining recording stand out as something truly special.The last four songs cannot really be considered among Sammy's greatest hits, making their inclusion on this CD somewhat unusual. These four songs are fun, and I've not run across them on the other Sammy albums I own, but they are far inferior to the amazing first six tracks. Talk to the Animals is a nice but hardly moving song, Time To Ride and I'm Over 25 (But You Can Trust Me) are energetic and interesting, but only Life Is a Woman really stands out among these four as something special. Its distinction is derived from the fact that it features yet more impersonations from Sammy. After dedicating the song to all the singers who have sung it and forgotten the words, he gives us a medley of unusual, often unintelligible voices including what I have to believe is Carol Channing's, rolls into a little Jimmy Stewart, and punctuates the ending with a little Groucho Marx. This isn't as much fun as Rock-A-Bye Your Baby, but it is highly entertaining nonetheless. You can find live versions of the first six songs on other compilation albums, but the best version of each one is available right here on this CD; the final four songs, while not Sammy's greatest, are interesting and rare enough to qualify as performances not to be missed. Thus, this album is well worth purchasing for two very different but quite powerful reasons. Excluding the complete live versions of individual concerts, this is my favorite collection of Sammy's live performances."

Pease stop exploiting Sammy!

jmatthews112 | arbutus, maryland | 01/19/2000

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Don't be tricked by the price tag...this is no steal of a deal. the only eason i gave it two stars is because i dont believe sammy did anything bad enough to only deserve one star. dont get me wrong...its not necessarily sammy, just the poor song selection and the typical line-up of I GOTTA BE ME and MR. BOJANGLES, ECT. as big a sammy fan as i consider myself to be, i could live without this one. stop the expoitation of sam's work....please. for a good buy check out the Rhino/Warner box set YES I CAN or SOUNDS OF 66 WITH BUDDY RICH. these will show you why sam was such a great entertainer."

Essential Sammy and a great price!

Buck Murdock | the place | 01/25/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Included here are live versions of some classic Sammy Davis tunes, like "Bojangles", "Gotta be me", and "Candy Man". Also included are some of Sammy's impersonations of Dean Martin, Marlon Brando, Cagney, and others in "...Dixie Melody" and the real funky "Time to Ride". As usual, Sammy shows his versitility, giving the audience a little bit of everything. A great collection and a steal of a price. Pick one up today, baby."