Search - The Orioles :: The Jubilee Recordings

Despite what it says above this ain't the Ponderosa

Lanark | minneapolis, mn | 06/19/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"it's The Orioles, and it's as wonderful and retentive a collection as any that Bear Family has put together. It's 6 discs just chock full of the smoothest vocal make-out music as you'll ever hear (The ballads seem to outnumber the uptempo numbers by at least a 4 to 1 ratio). Sonny Til has a way with a ballad that is perhaps surpassed only by Little Jimmy Scott. The harmonies are superb and always just a little tweaked from what you might normally expect to hear. Just heart stoppingly lush and lovely and nearly smarm free (even when strings are deployed they take a tasteful backseat to the vocals). And those bridges. Yikes! Only the most heartless could fail to be moved. Personally, I'm a puddle. And after the most cursory of listens I've found remarkably little chaff as you might expect in a collection this large. (and even at least one veiled drug reference in an unreleased novelty number called "Cigareetos") So grab your honey, dim the lights and swap some spit. Here's your sondtrack."