I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is one of the greatest CDs of popular music in the entire catalog. Dinah Shore, at this time in her career, possessed a voice that was warm and subtle at the same time. She turns every selection on this album into a jewel with perfectly honed phrasing and a brilliant sense of drama. The Gentleman is a Dope is a great example of Shore taking a perhaps second rate song and investing it with just the right sentiment and feel. She can also create a dreamy mood when necessary, as in Far Away Places. Shore's career at this time typified the trend of solo artists performing in their own right rather than as a vocalist with a big band, a trend that Frank Sinatra typified when he left Tommy Dorsey. When you hear these recordings by Shore, it's clear that the big career she had on television was entirely justified by her talent. There is no album of popular songs that I enjoy much more than this one. It belongs in everyone's collection of popular music.
May 22, 2008Dinah Shore has a lovely voice, but my enjoyment of this recording was hampered by dated subject material and uninteresting musical arrangements. Songs like "The Gentleman Is A Dope" and "It's So Nice to Have a Man Around the House" are real groaners, harkening back to a day when a woman was thought to be incomplete without a man in her life and she was better off being with a jerk than being on her own.
August 13, 2005 |  | Second of two sensational Dinah hit collections |  |
Dinah was one of the most successful female pop singers of the 1940's, though she could also sing jazz when she was allowed to. This collection and it's companion volume, 16 greatest hits, contain all the essential hits that Dinah recorded for Columbia from 1946 to 1950.
This collection includes the major hits Laughing on the outside crying on the inside (#3), You keep coming back like a song (#5), I love you for sentimental reasons (#2), Anniversary song (#1), You do (#4) and I wish I didn't love you so (#2). Some of these songs faced stiff competition from other versions of the same song and it wasn't always Dinah's version that charted highest, but Dinah's versions are all of a high quality. Another of Dinah's hits included here, Far away places, stalled at 14, partly because Dinah's version came too late to compete with Maggie Whiting, Bing Crosby and Perry Como, all of whom hit the charts earlier. Perhaps Dinah only recorded the song after hearing it on the radio - if so, she did well to chart at all.
This CD and it's companion provide a wonderful introduction to her music. Between them, they provide 32 great songs including all of Dinah's most commercially successful songs from the period covered. Buy them both !!!! October 3, 2002
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