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The Essential Rosemary Clooney cd

Cheryl Papa | Elkhart, Indiana | 01/05/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Good price and if you've not had the pleasure of hearing Clooney sing, do yourself a favor and get this cd. If you love a mellow voice, you'll adore Clooney!"

As I Said In Another Review - Never Less Than 5 Stars For Ro

Cheryl Papa | 07/04/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This, like most other CD compilations of the music of Rosemary Clooney, warrants 5 stars simply because, no matter what the tune or song, her rendition always ranks right up there with the very best. She was that good.



Having said that, however, and as a diehard collector of hit singles, I lament the lack of releases covering many artists like Rosie which fail to deliver ALL the songs that made them stars, i.e., the hit singles that got them heard on the airwaves and juke boxes in those days of the 78/45 rpm. I also question the snobbery of some who pass off many of those hits as "fluff" not worthy of the artist concerned.



Here, for example, author Didier C. Deutsch, in his two pages of liner notes, says, in reference to her widespread recognition today as one of the premier song stylists of the 20th Century, "This she achieved in spite of the fact that many of the songs she was asked to perform in the 1950s and that ensured her success were novelty tunes that were beneath her real talent and well-honed skills as a vocalist."



Well, yes, many do not compare with the classic Gershwin, Berlin, Porter, Kern, etc., songs that most singers of her quality loved to get their chops around. But then again, those "novelty" tunes paid the rent and ultimately brought the singers to national attention, not to mention appealing to enough millions of fans to achieve hit status. Some them very significant hits.



In this release exactly half (tracks 1, 3 to 5 and 12 to 15) are from among the 34 hit singes she had as a solo artist from 1951 to 1960, all but one (the last, which came out on RCA Victor) for the Columbia label. But the point is, these eight are repeated in several other releases, especially those offering her "best" or "greatest" hits.



I suppose many consider the lead track, Come-On-A My House from the Broadway musical The Son, a "novelty" tune, but with Stan Freeman pounding away on the harpsichord, and Rosie's exuberant singing, this climbed all the way to # 1 in the summer of 1951, and stayed there for eight solid weeks b/w Rose Of The Mountain. And Botch-A-Me (Ba-Ba-Baciami Piccina), from the Italian film Una Famiglia Impossible, didn't do too badly either, hitting # 2 in the summer of 1952 b/w On The First Warm Day.



Maybe they do fit the category of "fluff" but they also apparently appealed to millions of fans whose tastes are all too readily denigrated by the elitist musical critics/historians. As an example take Tenderly (track 14). Accompanied by the Percy Faith orchestra (and certainly one of my Clooney favourites), this could only rise as high as # 17 in the spring of 1952, a relatively modest success, and finished at # 131 for the year. And yet it was voted as the # 2 all-time standard in a Billboard disc jockey poll, and Rosie's version the # 6 all-time record!



I'm not about to dispute those results, but at the same time I'm asking distributors to start considering those (while we're still alive) who also liked many of her other "novelty" tunes which never seem to be made available in a quality CD release. Songs such as the two sided hit from late 1951, I'm Waiting Just For You (# 21) b/w If Teardrops Were Pennies (# 24), Too Old To Cut The Mustard with Marlene Dietrich (# 12 in September 1952, If I Had A Penny (# 26) and Dennis The Menace with Jimmy Boyd (# 25), both in early 1953, and the 1953 official Christmas Seal song, Happy Christmas, Little Friend (# 30).



Until we do get such a release, this is a nice option for anyone wanting to sample Rosemary Clooney for the first time, with excellent sound reproduction and a fold-out insert containing the Deutsch notes, as well as a track-by-track sessionography/discography, and a couple of more nice photos of Rosemary."