Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians - The Band Played On - 25 Number One Hits!

The Band Played On, Guy Lumbardo 25 No. 1 Hits

This CD was very frustrating. The sound quality was poor in all respects. Even the volume was somewhat low and sounded rather distant. I listened to just the first selection. I was very disappointed in this purchase. It apparently was produced-made in the UK. Why the quality problem is not clear. It was returned. September 21, 2007

Dance hits of the thirties and forties

For those of us raised on the music of the second half of the twentieth century, the music contained on this CD does not sound like music to dance to - more like easy listening music to relax to - but Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians were one of the leading dance bands of their day.

They had 26 number one hits of their own on the American charts, of which 23 can be found here. They also had two other number ones as the backing group to solo singers Kate Smith and Bing Crosby. Kate and Guy's band hit number one with River stay `way from my door, also included here. Harbour lights, although included here, was (according to Billboard) only a number two hit for Guy.

Two of the three missing (You're driving me crazy and Boo hoo), together with the song that Bing and Guy's band took to number one (You're getting to be a habit with me), can be found on another ASV compilation, Sweetest music this side of heaven. Just one of Guy's number one hits is hard to find - The last round up, although other versions of that song are readily available.

Anybody familiar with Kate's music will enjoy her song, especially as (at the time of writing this review) this is the only CD on which it is available, although it has previously been released on compilations of Kate's music.

The remaining tracks mainly feature Carmen Lombardo on vocals. He was the singer up to 1941. Although the band had many more hits after that, with several different singers, nearly all the number ones occurred during Carmen's years.

Even if you are new to Guy's music, fans of the Great American Songbook will recognise some of the songs, including Stars fell on Alabama (which I first came across via Doris Day's lovely cover), Red sails in the sunset (my favorite cover of this is by Frances Langford), September in the rain (Dinah Washington made this song her own) and Harbour lights, which Frances Langford had a top ten hit with in 1937 (it was not only her biggest hit, but possibly her finest recording), but the song became a lot more popular in 1950 when Guy's version was one of several top ten hits. It received a further boost when the Platters covered it later in the fifties - that is the version most people are now familiar with.

People may not dance to this kind of music these days, but Guy and his orchestra made some very high quality music. This collection contains 25 of their finest recordings. If you only buy one CD of Guy's music, this is the one to go for. February 28, 2003

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