Saturday, 13 December 2025

On The Swingin' Side...Vic Damone.

 A swingin' Vic Damone away from his MGM musical roles !

On the Swingin' Side is an unadulterated up-tempo delight that deserves to be rediscovered. The charts are bright, Vic Damone is relaxed but never dull, and the mood finds a nice balance between romance and spirited humor....... ( Review By Nick Dedina Of AllMusic)

1. Falling In Love With Love
2. Its Alright With Me
3. When My Sugar Walks Down The Street
4. Cry Me A River
5. Home
6. Swingin' Down The Lane

1. I Cried For You
2. Speak Low
3. It's A Wonderful World
4. Girl Of My Dreams
5. Deep Purple
6. Toot Toot Tootsie

       3. When My Sugar Walks Down The Street

Friday, 12 December 2025

After Hours With Miss D...Dinah Washington.

If you like Dinah then this is a treat... one of the best recording's of hers !!....including a extra  long version of Blue Skies as the last track
After Hours with Miss "D" is a 1954 studio album by Dinah Washington. 
One of her earliest Jazz session would be June 1954 sessions featuring Paul Quinichette, followed by some Blues/Popular sessions. Then in the middle 1954, she tried another great jazzy session. Among all recorded tracks, A-1 “Blue Skies” may be the best track - her emotional singing is awesome as always, while his backing musicians plays a good amount of solos which are also attractive. 

1. Blue Skies
2. Bye Bye Blues
3. Am I Blue
4. Our Love Is Here To Stay
5. A Foggy Day

1. I Let a Song Go Out Of my Heart
2. Pennies from Heaven
3. Love For Sale
4. Blue Skies
Dinah Washington (born Ruth Lee Jones; August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) was an American singer and pianist, who has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the 1950s songs". Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performed and recorded in a wide variety of styles including blues, R&B, and traditional pop music, and gave herself the title of "Queen of the Blues". She was a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.She made her recording debut for the Keynote label that December with "Evil Gal Blues", written by Leonard Feather and backed by Hampton and musicians from his band,  Both that record and its follow-up, "Salty Papa Blues", made the Billboard "Harlem Hit Parade" in 1944. In December 1945 she made a series of twelve recordings for Apollo Records.

     4. Blue Skies

Thursday, 11 December 2025

Easy To Remember...Tony Mansells Coffee Set.

An easy listening L/P in the style of Ray Conniff & The Mike Sammes Singers. Not very much info on the net about these singers but they definitely do a great job...no photo's as well so front and back L/P  will have to do !

       5. Poinciana

Caterina Valente...A Date With Caterina Valente.

A very early Caterina on the Polydor Label with some of her hits from the 50's....this selection is the first of Caterina's 78rpm records that I had....Only "The Breeze And I" have survived !

1. My Lonely Lover
2. Fiesta Cubana
3. This Must Be Wrong
4. The Way You Love Me

1. Temptation
2. If Hearts Could Talk
3. The Breeze And I
4. Malaguena
Caterina Valente (born 14 January 1931) is a French-Italian multilingual singer, guitarist, dancer, and actress. Valente is a polyglot; she speaks six languages, and sings in eleven. While she is best known as a European performer, Valente also spent part of her career in the United States, where she performed alongside Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Perry Como, and Ella Fitzgerald, among others.

      2. If Hearts Could Talk

Alison Moyet... Alf.


I think Alison has a great individual voice and love her version of "All Cried Out".....In fact I would say that it is the "Definitive" version of that song !!....the rest of the songs on this L/P comes under what I think is that the more you hear them the better they become !!


1. Love Resurrection
2. Honey For The Bees
3. For You Only
4. Invisible
5. Steal Me Blind

1. All Cried Out
2. Money Mile
3. Twisting The Knife
4. Where Hides Sleep



    1. All Cried Out

Wednesday, 10 December 2025

Motion In Percussion...The Hollywood Pops Orchestra.

If you have a good stereo system then this is a great sound.

1. Malaguena
2. Sabre Dance
3. Old Soft Shoe
4. Bats In The Belfry
5. Ghost Riders In The Sky
6. Voodoo Moon

1. Roller Coaster
2. Dizzy Fingers
3. Caravan
4. Flight Of the Bumble Bee
5. Beguine For Bongos
6. Ski Run
       2. Sabre Dance

Kiki Dee...Cage The Songbird.

Pauline Matthews (born 6 March 1947), better known by her stage name Kiki Dee, is an English singer. Known for her blue-eyed soul vocals, she was the first female singer from the UK to sign with Motown's Tamla Records.
Dee is best known for her 1973 hit "Amoureuse", her 1974 hit "I've Got the Music in Me" and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", her 1976 duet with Elton John, which went to number 1 on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Her 1981 single "Star" became the theme song for the talent show Opportunity Knocks when it was revived by the BBC in 1987. In 1993, she performed another duet with John for his Duets album, a cover version of Cole Porter's "True Love", which reached number 2 in the UK. During her career, she has released 40 singles, three EPs and 12 albums.
Cage The Song Bird was recorded in 1975 and intended as the follow-up
to 1974s I've Got The Music In Me but was never commercially released until 2008. The reasons were never clear but perhaps Rocket , management and maybe Kiki herself were a little unsure of the end result.
"Cage the Songbird" was a tribute to legendary French songstress Edith Piaf, and a year or so later was covered by Kiki Dee on an unreleased Rocket album, which finally was issued in 2008. 
       8. Rock 'N' Roll Me Baby

Monday, 8 December 2025

Sounds Of The Unexpected...VA

A little bit more madness ! I guess the title says it all !!.....if you like your music a bit strange and wacky then give this a listen !!

 
       19. B'wana Bongos  

Carmen McRae...Second To None.

A great singer now..

1. In Love In Vain
2. Where Did It Go
3. The Music That Makes Me Dance
4. Because Your Mine
5. Too Good
6. Once Upon A Summertime

1. The Night Has A Thousand Eyes
2. Cloudy Morning
3. Blame It On my Youth
4. Winter In May
5. My Reverie
6. And I Love Him
      2. Where Did It Go 

Mambo...Yma Sumac.

Two EP's from the 50's from the Queen of Exotica is next on the agenda. 
Yma Sumac ( September 10, 1923 – November 1, 2008), was a Peruvian–American coloratura soprano. In the 1950s, she was one of the most famous exponents of exotica music.
Sumac was born Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chávarri del Castillo on September 10, 1923, in Ichocán, a historically Indian village in Cajamarca, Peru. Her parents were Sixto Chávarri and Emilia del Castillo. Her father was born in Cajamarca and her mother was born in Pallasca. Stories published in the 1950s claimed that she was an Incan princess, directly descended from Atahualpa.
The government of Peru in 1946 formally supported her claim to be descended from Atahualpa, the last Incan emperor. She was the youngest of six children. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father a civic leader.
Sumac became an international success based on her extreme vocal range. She had six-and-a-half octaves according to some reports, (A typical trained singer has a range of about three octaves.) She was able to sing notes in the low baritone register as well as notes above the range of an ordinary soprano and notes in the whistle register. Both low and high extremes can be heard in the song "Chuncho (The Forest Creatures)" (1953). She was also apparently able to sing in a remarkable "double voice".
She married Moisés Vivanco on June 6, 1942. After this date, Moises and Yma toured South America and Mexico as a group of fourteen musicians called Imma Sumack and the Conjunto Folklorico Peruana. In 1946, Sumac and Vivanco moved to New York City where they performed as the Inka Taqui Trio, Sumac singing soprano, Vivanco on guitar, and her cousin, Cholita Rivero, singing contralto and dancing. The group was unable to attain any success; their participation in South American Music Festival in Carnegie Hall was reviewed positively. She was signed by Capitol Records in 1950, at which time her stage name became Yma Sumac. Her first album, Voice of the Xtabay, launched a period of fame that included performances at the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall. In 1950 she made her first tour to Europe and Africa, and debuted at the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Royal Festival Hall before the Queen. She presented more than 80 concerts in London and 16 concerts in Paris.. During the 1950s, she produced a series of lounge music recordings featuring Hollywood-style versions of Incan and South American folk songs, working with Les Baxter and Billy May. She put out a number of hit albums, such as Mambo! (1954) and Fuego del Ande (1959). Capitol Records, During the height of Sumac's popularity, she appeared in the films Secret of the Incas (1954) with Charlton Heston and Robert Young and Omar Khayyam (1957).
Sumac had a wide vocal register, could emit notes above a coloratura soprano to the low notes of a bass, had one of the widest vocal ranges, being able to emit notes from the tessitura of sopranino, soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone and bass, was the only person able to do the triple coloratura or the trill of the birds......(Info Edited From Wikipedia)

1. Bo Mambo
2. Taki Rari
3. Gopher
4. Chicken Talk
5. Malambo No 2
6. Five Bottles Mambo
7. Indian carnival
8. Jungla 

      3 Gopher

Sunday, 7 December 2025

Jonathan & Darlene's Greatest Hits.Volume 2.

More crazyness from Jo And Paul !!  

1. Cocktails For Two
2. Tiptoe Through The Tulips
3. Ain't Misbehavin'
4. The Object Of My Affection
5. Five Foot Too Eyes Of Blue
6. Sophisticated Lady
7. Play a Simple Melody
8. I'm Beginning To see The Light
9. For Me And my Gal
10. La Vie En Rose
11. Pretty Baby
12. Paris In The Spring
13 That Certain Party
14. Its Magic

      2. Tiptoe Through The Tulips
         10. La Vie En Rose

Hollywood's Best...Rosemary Clooney & Harry James

Harry And Rosie Duo singing some Academy Award songs great listening !!
Hollywood's Best..... Review by William Ruhlmann Of ALLMUSIC..

Rosemary Clooney's success as a singles artist with a string of hits, including the chart-toppers "Come On-A My House" and "Half as Much," convinced Columbia Records that the time was right for her first LP, on which the rising star was paired with a faltering labelmate, trumpeter and bandleader Harry James, on an album consisting of eight of the 18 songs that won the Academy Award between 1934 and 1951. In essence, Clooney serves as the girl singer for Harry James & His Orchestra on this disc, with James' trumpet serving as a duet partner. His distinctive playing leads off the collection on a version of the 1943 Oscar-winner "You'll Never Know" before she comes in, sounding much more as she did singing in a legato style with Tony Pastor in the 1940s than as the comic dialect personality of "Come On-A My House." Clearly, this is intended as music for grownups, not for the novelty-happy hit-parade crowd. Often, these familiar songs also have familiar interpreters, and it can't be said that Clooney and James were going to make anyone forget Judy Garland's take on "Over the Rainbow" or Bing Crosby's on "Sweet Leilani" and 1951's "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening." But the album delivered exactly what it promised in the singer's clearly enunciated matter-of-fact phrasing and the instrumentalist's characteristically broad tone on some well-loved material. The album reached number three in the Billboard pop albums chart, while "You'll Never Know" spent a week in the pop singles chart.

1. You'll Never Know
2. On The Atchison Topeka And The Santa Fe
3. Ruby
4. It Might As Well Be Spring
5. Come On-a-My House
6. Over The Rainbow

1. Sweet Leilani
2. The Continental
3. Stella By Starlight
4. When You Wish Upon A Star
5. Red Garters
6. In The Cool Cool Of The Evening

       1. You'll Never Know

The Sound Of Fury...Billy Fury.

A real blast from the past now !!...the 60's to be exact nostalgia at its best !!
Isn't is great that you can hear every word he sings !!...today singers should take note !!!!
        1. Thats Love

I Remember Tommy...Frank Sinatra.

Old blue eyes is back reprising his early days as a Big band singer..and on "Reprise" of course  !!...Project for later get the original  tracks and make a play list of him singing the original track follow it by the track this L/P !!!
        6. Without A Song

Jr Walker & The All Stars...Greatest Hits.

Some hits from the 60's...some great sax on this one !!
       2. How Sweet It Is

Chic...Chic's Greatest Hits.

"Les Plus Grands Succes De Chic"....which says "Chic's Greatest Hits" !
Wondering if "Yowser" is French??!!

"Yowser"....
an slightly scared exclamation similar to "holy crap" or "yikes". Made famous by Shaggy in Scooby Doo.
       3. Dance Dance Dance

Sunny Afternoon...The Kinks

Here's a look back to the 60's  with the psychedelic Buick !! and four kinky lads !!

        6. Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Angels & Other Original BBC TV Themes.

A nice compilation from "Bob" featuring BBC's Themes which I guess will be very familiar to nearly every one who watches Television from the bygone days of Black and White and NO remote!! you had to get up off your a**e walk over to the T/V and either press a button or turn a knob !!!....Ah those were the days !!
       4. Dance Ti Thi Daddy

Saturday, 6 December 2025

The Happy Beat...Ray Conniff & Orchestra.

Vintage Conniff !! complete with the famous Shuffle Beat.....Ya can't beat the early Conniff sound !!

1. Volare
2. Gigi
3. Yellow Rose
4. Wheel Of Fortune
5. Song From Moulin Rouge
6. Mack The Knife

1. I Walk Alone
2. Never On A Sunday
3. Chanson d'amour
4. Blueberry Hill
5. Cry
6. My Prayer

       6. Mack The Knife