Search - Burl Ives :: 20th Century Masters: Millennium Collection

This Could Have Been So Much Better

I. C. Leggott | 06/18/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I have to agree with those other reviewers who point to the obvious shortcomings of this release in the vast 20th Century Masters Series. I mean, if you are going to honour a legend like Burl Ives in a 12-track release, a man who had some 19 hit singles from 1948 to 1968, wouldn't it be prudent to put in 12 of those hits?



The last three here, while perhaps familiar to his many fans, cannot be considered among his "best" - not if you concede that "best" means those songs of his that made national charts. The remaining nine are bona fide hit singles, some among them indeed his very best, such as A Little Bitty Tear (# 1 Adult Contemporary [AC]/# 2 Country/# 9 Billboard Pop Hot 100 in late 1961/early 1962), Funny Way Of Laughing (# 3 AC/# 9 Country/# 10 Hot 100 in May 1962), Call Me Mr. In-Between (# 3 Country/# 6 AC/# 19 Hot 100 in August 1962), and Mary Ann Regrets (# 12 Country/# 13 AC/# 39 Hot 100 in December 1962). Not many artists were able to score such big hits on all three of those charts.



Before that, way back in th 1940s, he teamed up with The Andrews Sisters on Blue Tail Fly (# 24 Pop in summer 1948), and in February 1949 got together with Captain Stubby & The Buccaneers to take Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly) to # 13 C&W and # 16 Pop. From the early 1950s period come The Wild Side Of Life which, with Grady Martin & His Slew Foot Five, made it to # 6 C&W and # 30 Pop in the summer of 1952.



Lesser hits represented here include The Same Old Hurt (# 91 Hot 100 in February 1963) and Pearly Shells (Popo O Ewa), which finished at # 60 Hot 100 in late summer 1964.



All of the foregoing hits were on the Decca (MCA) label, which probably accounts for the absence of these Columbia hits: Riders In The Sky (Cowboy Legend), which was a # 8 C&W/# 21 Pop hit in June 1949; On Top Of Old Smoky, a # 10 Pop in June 1951 with Percy Faith's orchestra, and his last hit from 1968, the Dylan-penned I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, which peaked at # 35 AC and # 133 Hot 100 "Bubble Under" in July.



But that still leaves these overlooked Decca hits, any three of which would have been better choices than the last three tracks: This Is All I Ask (# 67 Hot 100 in August 1963); True Loves Goes On And On (# 66 Hot 100 in late 1963/early 1964); Evil On My Mind (# 47 Country in September 1966); and Lonesome 7-7203 (# 72 Country in February 1967). Then, of course, there's also A Holly Jolly Christmas from the animated TV show in 1964, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, which made it to # 13 on the Billboard Christmas charts that year, and charted again in 1997 at # 30 AC.



Not a very thorough job by compilers Joseph F. Laredo (who also wrote the two pages of liner notes) and Andy McKale.



"