Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. I'll Buy You A Star
2. Stairway To The Stars
3. When My Sugar Walks Down The Street
4. Magic Garden
5. Smike
6. Oh How I Try
7. Ring The Bell
8. Love Look Away
9. Sudden Love
10. Best Is Yet To Come
11. Warm And Willing
12. My Heart And I
13. Jenny
14. Wasn't The Summer Short
15. Wherever You Are It's Spring
16. Should I Wait (Or Should I Run To Her)

Disc 2:

1. Live It Up
2. Just Friends
3. Ace In The Hole
4. On A Cold And Rainy Day
5. Why Not
6. I Won't Dance
7. Johnny One Note
8. Too Much Too Soon
9. Riviera
10. Crazy In The Heart
11. Hey Look Me Over
12. Love

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16605 in Music
• Released on: 2009-05-11
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Customer Reviews

MATHIS AND RIDDLE'S DYNAMIC DUO!
It's hard to believe the longevity of the Johnny Mathis recording career has now spanned fifty-three years with every hope of a new album being released to excite his vast fan-base. However, backtracking to his earlier albums, those with worn out vinyl will welcome the fact Collector's Choice Music has invaded the vaults and selected ten of the best Mathis albums for release on five two-disc sets with each album given its own individual disc - a decision that will delight collectors who prefer such separation.

Sometimes the meeting of two great talents fails to musically ignite but fortunately when Johnny Mathis shared two albums with the iconic arranger/conductor Nelson Riddle in 1961, and the following year, the results proved to be quite sensational. It's perhaps fortuitous Riddle fully understood the Mathis preference for lush romantic ballads; using a backdrop of strings to anchor the chosen repertoire for I'LL BUY YOU A STAR even though the album's title song is lightly swinging along with WHEN MY SUGAR WALKS DOWN THE STREET, RING THE BELL and THE BEST IS YET TO COME which benefit from a brassy back-up to assist Johnny's transition to their more dynamic swinging setting. However, the heartfelt SMILE; lightly Latin SUDDEN LOVE; atmospheric MAGIC GARDEN; Forties chorus-lead ambiance of OH, HOW I TRY and the album's topper - the lovely ballad LOVE LOOK AWAY from Rodgers and Hammerstein's FLOWER DRUM SONG provide the necessary contrast to make this a five-star album. The surprise and unexplained addition of four pop-styled ballads is a welcome if unrelated touch.

LIVE IT UP! surpasses the previous album and pulls the stops out to present a dozen tracks which wildly swing through sizzling Riddle arrangements that can still excite the listener over forty years later. The title song sets the pace with LOVE, THE RIVIERA and JOHNNY ONE NOTE amongst up-front swinging gems, with HEY, LOOK ME OVER from the Broadway musical, WILDCAT another example showing Johnny's sheer enjoyment of the occasion with perfect phrasing and sense of rhythm even when the opening verses of JUST FRIENDS and I WON'T DANCE might momentarily suggest a slower tempo before upping into their main swinging force. Only ON A COLD AND RAINY DAY and CRAZY IN THE HEART slow the pace ever so slightly.

Both albums must rate amongst Johnny's very best with the singer in top vocal form and Riddle's enticing arrangements equalling anything he ever did with Sinatra, Dean Martin and other singers at Capitol Records.

Collectors' Choice Music always ensure high standards are reached and the presentation of these albums is matched by excellent liner notes for each album and reproduction of original covers, release dates, catalogue numbers and chart positions. Therefore, the complete series of five CD sets is highly recommended.

Worthwhile re-release of two fine albums
The producers of this CD have done an excellent job of putting these two albums on CD. They are very clear and "alive" and it sounds as though the albums have been transferred from master tapes, rather than just from the vinyl LPs as so often sadly happens. I'll Buy You A Star was released on CD around thirteen years ago, and it's good to see that the producers have kept the bonus tracks from that release, rather than cut the album back to the original 12, even though this has meant including two CDs rather than just one. Oddly, this isn't mentioned in the liner notes, which also have Live It Up being released in 1961, rather than the correct 1962.

Mathis is on excellent voice here. If you're used to his famous 1950s recordings, this is a more full, richer voice. He overdoes the Lena Horne soundalike thing a bit for my taste on a few of the tracks (notably I Won't Dance), and it just keeps these albums from being absolutely classic, but this is generally excellent singing, superbly supported by Nelson Riddle's orchestrations.

Some highlights are the lighter songs like When My Sugar Walks Down The Street - unlike, say, Frank Sinatra or Nat King Cole, Mathis has a sort of youthful mischief that allows him to pull off the more lightweight style required for something like that. But he absolutely nails the ballads as well, making Smile his own, even. And his performance of Love Look Away is just towering.

For me, the combination of Mathis and Riddle never worked as well as some of the other pairings with Riddle, like Sinatra or Fitzgerald, or as well as Mathis's pairings with D'Arneill Pershing, Percy Faith or Gene Page, and so these albums don't represent Mathis's absolute peak. But they still show an excellent singer and an excellent arranger making highly listenable music together. They're well worth buying, and even if you're not a fan of Mathis's, they might just convert you.