Nat King Cole - The Classic Singles (102 tracks) +Album Reviews

Bear Family, where are you?

Andrew R. Prets | 12/06/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"If you're a die hard collector of Nat "King" Cole recordings you may look at the contents of this collection and fantasize about finally having stereo versions of some of his 60's material that has NEVER been released on LP or CD in stereo. Well, forget it. Only two tracks on cd four ("Let There Be Love" and "Dear Lonely Hearts") are in stereo. Not even "Stardust" and "When I Fall In Love" which were among the first tracks recorded by Capitol in stereo are in stereo here! In all fairness it should be mentioned that they did go back to the original masters for "You Made Me Love You" and "Let True Love Begin" instead of using the putrid David Cavanaugh rhythm track versions we've been stuck with since Mr. Cole's death but they're not in stereo. In fact, that in itself is ironic because the notes include a picture of the stereo EP that contained "You Made Me Love You"! As for the rest, you probably have everything on cd one because you probably have the Mosaic box. There are 4 or 5 nice rarities on cds two and three but you've got everything else. When oh when will Bear Family in Germany step in and do for Nat "King" Cole and Perry Como what they did for Dean Martin, Doris Day, Rosemary Clooney etc.? We seem to be incapable of it in the US."

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT...

bispro | France | 12/30/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Nat King Cole was one of the top performers of the 20th century, but it seems like only Capitol fails to realise that. They are the guardians of his musical legacy, the ones that have the responsibility of making his music live on well into the 21st century, and what do they give us? Compilation after compilation of previously released material (when hundreds of unreleased tracks still lay dormant in their vaults),and when they finally come up with an interesting project, they mess it up with average sound quality!I wouldn't quite agree with the notion, expressed by another reviewer, that Capitol should leave the Nat Cole material solely in the hands of their Capitol Jazz label... Capitol Jazz has excellent releases, liner notes, packaging, etc. (The 'Billy May sessions' 2-CD set, for instance, is brilliant), but it doesn't mean that plain Capitol isn't capable of equaling that quality, even surpassing it, given the right budget and an able team of archivists and reviewers (the 'Complete Capitol Singles' by Sinatra is a case in point). Only problem is, Sinatra sells more than Cole, and so they refuse to invest the same amount of money on an artist that is not so "cost-efficient"...What a disgrace that they forgot where they come from... Capitol Tower, the symbol in their logo and headquarters for more than half a century, was described at its creation as "the house that Nat Cole built", referring to the huge popularity of his Trio recordings that gave the label its biggest revenue in the 1940s.The Nat King Cole catalog on Capitol has been artificially divided between the two labels. Why not leave the Trio era recordings to Capitol Jazz and the later, solo recordings to the main label? After all, they are exactly in the same vein as the Sinatra recordings of the same period!As for this here collection, I still dream of two separate singles sets: 'the Trio years'containing all Trio single sides, and 'the Solo years', covering the second half of his career. Stereo recordings whenever possible, all the sides (there were quite a few, but real fans would agree to pay a little more for it). Not only Nat deserves this, but his fans do, too... and the 21st century music listeners deserve to discover the legacy of one of the most extraordinary vocalists and pianists of all time."

A great listen from start to finish

Scott N. Burton | Bridgeport,CT USA | 09/18/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Along with Bing Crosby & Frank Sinatra,Nat King Cole was,hands down,one of the greatest American singers of the 20th century-I read a very positive review of this anthology in Goldmine magazine & decided to purchase it-This collection starts off with the recordings he made with his King Cole trio-Disc 2 features the songs that made his solo career memorable-Four of the songs on this disc were #1 in Billboard:"I Love You For Sentimental Reasons","Nature Boy","Mona Lisa",& "Too Young"-Some of the other standout tracks include "Walkin My Baby Back Home","Unforgettable","Smile",(written by Charlie Chaplin),"Pretend","Ramblin Rose","That Sunday,That Summer",& that perennial favorite,Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song"-The accompanying booklet has a great essay on Nat's career as well as an extensive discography,listing chart positions,which were taken from the weekly charts of Billboard magazine-For the hard core Nat King Cole devotee,this is definitely the collection to own."

Where's the stereo, WHERE'S THE STEREO?!!

Brad Hoffman | 03/08/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"First a little background on this set. Beginning with the stereo era in the late 1950's and early '60's, record labels including Capitol began offering most albums in both stereo and monaural, until stereo proved more popular and monaural was phased out altogether in the late 1960's. The same held true for 45 rpm singles, but most teens purchased the mono 45rpm records, since they were cheaper, and closer to what they heard on AM transistor radios. For the monaural releases, most record labels either mixed down the stereo versions into a flat mono track, or simply pulled the right or left stereo channel, and ran it straight on the 45, leaving a much different sounding version that the stereo versions. Capitol did both. Nat King Cole: the Classic Singles, offers us those monaural singles, for the most part as they sounded as 78 and 45 rpm single records. Monaural recordings can sound very good, if done correctly. For the first three discs of this set, that is the case. Some of the mastering on the early to mid 50's singles with Cole and Nelson Riddle, really sparkle. However it's the fourth disc with which I have the problem. The producer, despite his oath in the booklet to find the best source material possible, has chosen to use the mono mixes of all of Cole's material, even tracks that were originally recorded in stereo. There are many reasons why he/she may have done this. Perhaps to stay with the "singles" theme and keep the songs sounding as they did when released on vinyl. If that's the case, why did the producer choose the stereo versions (and bad ones at that) of Let There Be Love, and Dear Lonely Hearts? Judging by the research that went in to the booklet that accompanies this set, I hardly think ignorance played a role in this. I'm sure the producer knew full well that there were stereo mixes of these songs out there. Contrary to what another reviewer said here, the point of purchasing a 70-dollar CD set *IS* to get the best sounding material available. While it's interesting to hear how some of these songs were mixed to mono, those tinny, shallow, flat recordings are not what I want to hear, and not what I expect from a release of this caliber. Some of these songs, When I Fall In Love, and Looking Back for instance, sound completely different than they did on stereo lp or previous CD releases. This set is certainly not alone in that respect. EMI CD releases from England have been substituting Mono masters for Stereo ones on Cole albums for years. Why, I have no idea. Considering Nat Cole recorded prolifically for Capitol for more than 20 years, I find it sad that so little of his work remains in print. In the past 20 years Capitol and EMI have reissued nearly all of Cole's albums on CD at one time or another. But many including "Love", "Ballads Of the Day", "St Louis Blues" "To Whom It May Concern" and "Wild Is Love" were deleted from Capitol's catalog within months of release, and to date nearly all are completely out of print. "Night Lights" released just five years ago, is also out of print. I hope that Collector's Choice Music leases the Cole masters and turns out a complete, album by album release of Cole's monstrous catalog, as they did for Dean Martin recently. That way we won't have to suffer through any more piecemeal releases from Capitol EMI."

These Are Advertised As "Classics" - Not "Hits"

Scott N. Burton | 08/25/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I suppose, for the true audiophile, that a CD produced in this day and age with some background hiss is quite unforgivable, and for that reason I can appreciate some of the negative comments. On the other hand if, like me, that is not an issue (unless the background noise is unbearable), then don't let that stop you from getting a copy of this box set.

Nor should you be dissuaded by the number of "hit singles" omitted. This does not, after all, purport to be his "greatest hit singles" but, rather, "classic singles" - a definition which, I admit, is open to argument and different interpretation. Sweet Lorraine, for example, was a failed single release by The King Cole Trio, and yet today is regarded as one of his classics. Much like, in the Country field, where Hank Williams' I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry never charted as the flipside of My Bucket's Got A Hole In It in 1949, and yet, not only would no Hank Williams compilation be complete without it, I daresay it's better remembered than the hit side.

I also have to wonder at the reviewer who says "songs from before extended play records (1949) can't rightly be called singles..." I'm not sure what he is driving at, but extended play (or E.P.) records had nothing to do with single releases. These were 45rpm [rarely, but sometimes, 33 1/3] records with two songs per side - at times three - with picture sleeves, sort of like mini-LPs.

Once in a while a selection from an EP [or even an LP] would enter the singles charts based upon demand for air play. Elvis did this a few times, and where Nat is concerned just one EP cut made the Billboard singles charts. That was Stardust (# 79 Billboard Pop Top 100 in 1957) which formed part of Capitol EP 824 "Love Is The Thing," also containing When Sunny Gets Blue, Maybe It's Because I Love You Too Much, and It's All In The Game.

Aside from such exceptions, true singles were always the one-song-per-side records - whether 78 or 45 rpm. Using the example of Kee-Mo Ky-Mo (The Magic Song), this became a # 10 hit on what then passed for the R&B charts in 1949 b/w Rex Rhumba on Capitol 15240 so, in every respect, this was not only a single, but a hit as well.

For the record, just 18 of the cuts in this 102-song set were not "hit" singles, but in just about every case you could make an argument for them as Nat "King" Cole classics. Such as his renditions of Tenderly, Dreams Can Tell A Lie, and When I Fall In Love.

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