Bobby Darin - If I Were a Carpenter/Inside Out

Excellent 2007 digitally remastered two-fer from the legendary vocalist. Despite the success of his previous two Atlantic albums of film and show tunes, in the summer of 1966, Bobby Darin ditched his tuxedo image and for a while became a fully-fledged folk hero. His first album to feature this dramatic change of style was If I Were A Carpenter, issued in December 1966. Darin's touch proved masterful and his interpretation of the Tim Hardin-written title track reached # 8 in the US, his biggest hit since 1960. Inside Out traveled a similar path and was released in 1967. The five bonus tracks are taken from the aborted sessions for a subsequent album, and were unreleased at the time of recording. The booklet features a lengthy and detailed sleevenote by Fred Dellar. Edsel. Album Description

One of my favorite Bobby Darin CD's

This is one of my favorite Bobby Darin CD's. Once again, as he was prone to do, Bobby recorded a selection of music from different genres than previous albums. As usual, there are many gems on these 2 albums...the CD is a treasure.
If you're only familiar with Bobby's more popular hits such as Mack the Knife, Dream Lover, etc, then you owe to yourself to explore the rest of his music because those hits were only the tip of the iceberg as far as his talent was concerned. You'll hear a different Bobby on this CD.
If you're already a Bobby Darin fan, I'd consider this CD a must-have for your collection. Enjoy! April 29, 2008

Unfocused song choices, poor recording quality

While this is the product to get if you are looking for the original Darin recordings of "Lady Came From Baltimore" and "If I Were a Carpenter," the recording quality is very murky, not cleaned up noticably from the original analog recordings. In fact, I would much rather hear these songs on a vinyl record, since deep vinyl grooves produced a more robust sound than you get here. Bobby Darin was, of course, a great singer of pop and early rock'n'roll (Dream Lover, Mac the Knife, etc.) whose heyday was the early 60's. This material was recorded in the "Death of Pop" mid-60's era when the British Invasion was firmly on shore, and psychedelia was around the corner. The record company was trying to market Bobby as a folk singer, but they seemed unsure of themselves, and the choice of songs reflects that. For example, a couple of Lovin' Spoonful covers, blended with some pop standards, some vaudeville (!) and a little folk. The album covers, as you can see, were straight pop in their appearance. This musical schizophrenia produced two LP's which were murky both in recording quality and song selection. Enough good material to be worth 3 stars, but that's about it. September 19, 2007

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