Search - Perez Prado :: Legengary

Great sound quality, iffy song selection

Sean T. Dwyer | St. Cloud, Minnesota | 06/01/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Pérez Prado compilations have suffered from the haphazard inclusion of poor transfers of some songs alongside pristine remasters of others. The good news is that the 50 recordings in this collection benefit for the most part from the gradual upgrading of the Pérez Prado masters. As an overview for the novice, "Legendary" has a sound quality and a choice of songs that will broaden this artist's appeal. But there is bad news: Pérez Prado had a penchant in later years for re-recording his popular tunes in new styles, turning his mambos into cha-cha-chas, dengues and twists to keep them fresh. Whether or not that tactic worked, compilations often ignore the true mambos in favor of the re-recordings, and that is unfair to the first-time listener. "Legendary" goes so far as to include both the 1949 and the 1959 recordings of "Qué rico el mambo" ("Mambo Jambo"), but in many cases only the newer non-mambos made this collection. As bad as that is, it is worse that, rather than include the #1 hit version of the 1958 smash "Patricia," the 1959 re-recording is included. And then there is the ultimate annoyance: "Why Wait," the B side of "Patricia" and one of the best cuts the King of the Mambo ever recorded, appears in a ridiculous 1967 re-recording rather than in the original. A compilation of 50 tracks should have included the original version of "Why Wait," which has NEVER appeared on CD. (A version with a twangy guitar overdub absent from the original single appeared on a BMG "Space Age Pop" collection and a Rhino "Cocktail Madness" compilation, but that is not what I am after.) I had hopes that the overall quality of this compilation would mean that someone had seen the light and brought out the ONLY significant Pérez Prado recording not yet issued on CD, but I was disappointed yet again. Apart from these gripes, there is a lot of value packed onto these three discs, so if you have no Pérez Prado CDs, this is probably a good set to get. You will, however, need to buy such others as "Cuban Originals" or "Lo mejor de lo mejor 2001" to get at the true genius of the man."