Search - Rosemary Clooney :: Look My Way / Nice to Be Around

Wilderness years? Some wilderness !!!!

Peter Durward Harris | Leicester England | 11/10/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The two albums paired here were recorded in the seventies for United Artists. The first of them (Look my way) is a country album recorded in Nashville. This should not come as a surprise to Rosie's fans, for although the Great American Songbook provided a large part of her repertoire, Rosie recorded many different types of song, and several of her early pop hits were originally written as country songs, including Half as much and This ole house.Look my way begins with a re-recording of Half as much, which is at least as good as her first recording of the song. Among the other songs are two by Jessi Colter (Storms never last and I'm not Lisa) and two by Don Gibson (When you got love and The very thought of losing you). Don wrote several songs (including I can't stop loving you, Sweet dreams, Oh lonesome me, Sea of heartbreak)which became famous, but Rosie ignored all those, instead choosing these two lovely but obscure songs. The album also includes When will I be loved (an Everly brothers song) and Singing the blues, originally a Marty Robbins song but best remembered via covers by Guy Mitchell and Tommy Steele.Rosie obviously loves Paul Simon's music as she included the obscure 'Twas a sunny day on Look my way, and two more of his songs (50 ways to leave your lover and My little town) on the second album here - Nice to be around.Nice to be around is an album of pop songs, including Send in the clowns (Judy Collins), All by myself (an Irving Berlin song from 1921 which became a 70's pop hit for Eric Carmen), The hungry years (Neil Sedaka) and I won't last a day without you (Carpenters).These are both excellent easy-listening albums which sit together well. Perhaps Rosie was out of fashion at the time they were recorded, but each album, in their way, show what a wonderful singer she was."

Two of Rosie's more obscure LPs in one CD - but still nice t

Bruce R. Gilson | Wheaton, MD United States | 08/29/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Rosemary Clooney is one of my three favorite singers, so it is no surprise that I enjoyed this album. Her big hits were recorded on Columbia Records, and later on she enjoyed a long relationship with Concord, a jazz-oriented company. But the two albums included in this compilation were made after she left Columbia and before she signed on to Concord. They were made for United Artists, whose rights apparently passed to EMI-Capitol, the company which released this CD.



The first album, "Look My Way," is described by another reviewer as a country album. I would disagree somewhat; this was apparently a very eclectic collection, ranging from country to calypso, showcasing the great flexibility and versatility that Rosemary Clooney had as a singer. It includes a remake of one of her earliest hits, "Half as Much," and listening to it showed that her voice was still very good after all those years. I agree with the other reviewer who said that the version on this album is almost as good as the original. Many of the songs on this first album are quite obscure, and only "Half as Much" and "Singing the Blues" are really familiar to me. But all are a pleasure to listen to.



"Nice to Be Around," like "Look My Way," is a collection of mostly obscure songs, with only a couple of well-known songs like "Send In the Clowns," but it differs from the first album in being more purely straight pop. The combination of the two, however, is a really good demonstration of just how much Rosemary Clooney could do as a singer, even many years past her prime. (Of course, she was singing, and sounding very good, even just a few months before her death!)"