Search - Dick Haymes, Alan Dale, Johnny Desmond :: The '50s Remembered, The Pop Vocalists Era: Dick Haymes, Alan Dale, Johnny Desmond, Don Cherry

AT LONG LAST ALAN DALE IS AVAILABLE ON CD

E. S. Frasuer | Los Angeles, California | 10/08/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"At last someone has seen fit to release on CD some recordings by the great ALAN DALE. Now that the mambo is staging a comeback, it's especially timely that this disc includes Dale's classic vocal of that dance's most famous number, "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White". You'll also find the song that launched the mambo's successor, the Cha Cha Cha --- Dale's record of "Sweet and Gentle". Most welcome, howcver, is an example of why Alan Dale was in the forefront of the post-Sinatra generation of singers, the dramatic ballad, "I'm Sorry." The three other singers featured here are well served by the chosen selections --- but they've been available on CD before. It's the presence of Alan Dale that makes this one special. Give it a listen, you'll be glad you did."

Not Quite As Good As The Female Vocalists Volume

E. S. Frasuer | 08/20/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As with the female vocalists volume in this 1996 two volume set from Varese Vintage, the contents are mixed when it comes to helping you remember the '50s. In fact, it's not as good.



First of all, why include Dick Haymes? His heyday was in the 1930s and 1940s, first as a band singer with the Harry James, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey orchestras, and then as a solo artist from 1943 to the very early part of the 1950s. Two of the five Dick Haymes selections included here [tracks 1 and 2] are from 1949, and two are 1950 duets, one with Ethel Merman [track 4] and one with Eileen Wilson [track 5]. Only Count Every Star is a solo 1950s selection, reaching # 10 in 1950. A much better choice, in keeping with the theme of 1950s male vocalists, would have been Nick Noble whose Mercury hits from that decade are just not to be found.



In any event, they do a much better job with both Alan Dale [once with the Carmen Cavallaro band] and Johnny Desmond [who earlier had sung with the Bob Crosby and Gene Krupa bands, as well as the Glenn Miller Military orchestra].



These are, like Noble, two more male vocalists from that period whose solo hits are very hard to find in CD format. Indeed, with the exception of (The Gang That Sang) Heart Of My Heart - a 1951 collaboration with Don Cornell and Johnny Desmond which would have been a better choice than track 6 which did not chart - both of Dale's big mid-1950s hits are here, as another reviewer points out. Where Desmond is concerned, in addition to his effort with Alan Dale and Buddy Greco at track 9, we get three of his biggest solo hits.



On the Don Cherry tracks they do a reasonable job with this former singer with the Jan Garber band in the 1940s, although they could have omitted track 13, which was not memorable in any respect, and instead included either of Wild Cherry or Ghost Town [# 29 and 22 respectively in 1956].



As with the female volume you get an insert containing one full page on each of the main artists involved, written by Robert W. Rice in 1996, and a complete discography of the contents on the reverse. Like the other volume, the sound quality is excellent."