Product Description

'The Ultimate Matt Monro' is a collection of the celebratedcrooner's finest moments. Compiled from over two decades ofhit singles, this album is a perfect showcase of the light,expressive swing that characterised much of Monro's work. Includes the title track to the James Bond movie 'From RussiaWith Love'.

Track Listing

1. Portrait Of My Love
2. My Kind Of Girl
3. Walk Away
4. I Can’t Stop Loving You
5. Softly As I Leave You
6. Gonna Build A Mountain
7. And We Were Lovers
8. If I Were A Carpenter
9. I’ll Only Miss Her When I Think Of Her
10. Bridge Over Troubled Water
11. Southern Star – English Version
12. Volvere Alguna Vez
13. All My Loving
14. For Once In My Life
15. Can’t Take My Eyes Off You (Spanish version)
16. What To Do
17. It’s A Wonderful World
18. Yesterday
19. Hey
20. My Way
21. I Am
22. From Russia With Love
23. Born Free
24. One Voice (previously unreleased)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2040 in Music
• Released on: 2005-01-31
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Superlative
This is another amazing collection of the velevety tones of the master. But the best surprize is the release of five new tracks never released to CD before. It's been a long time coming and is aptly fitting for the 20th Anniversary. It's a great easy listening collection of his well known hits and will bring back some wonderful memories to the listener. It's also a treat that some of the oldies have been remastered. Well done EMI. Fantastic

Must-Have Release Breaks New Ground
This is a hugely rewarding time for Matt Monro fans all over the world. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of his passing, his family has played a major role in the release of this album as well as the upcoming DVD set "An Evening With Matt Monro," which includes the only known (and newly-discovered) filmed concert from his entire career.

Matt was the greatest pop singer of the last century, and if that sounds like fawning hyperbole, maybe it will at least entice you to have a listen to this album, a compendium of his top hits with other notable tracks included to personalize the collection a bit. The centerpiece is a live rendition of "One Voice," the Barry Manilow number that Matt performed regularly in his final years (but never recorded). As always, Matt makes the song his own, keeping you interested in the song's repetitive lyric through varying interpretations and turning a sing-song tune into an anthem.

Not coincidentally, "One Voice" showcases the extraordinary power and range of Matt's voice. Engineered from a TV program, it is his only "live" recording ever released, and may represent a newly-determined resource for future live tracks, Matt never having recorded a live album.

The success of this album, which had reached into the Top 25 at the time of this writing, may propel EMI to release more cleverly-conceived compilations like it. My bigger hope, being an American, is that their U.S. division will perk up and get Matt back into stores over here, giving him a leading presence in our ongoing singers-and-standards boom. This chart success, 20 years after he left us, shows that he has passed the "timelessness" test and has proven his appeal to new and future generations.

Brilliant introduction to Matt's music
Considering that Matt is largely forgotten these days, and is not around to remind people of his brilliance, quite a lot of his music is available on CD (at least in the UK) including a bewildering array of compilations as well as several twofers containing re-issues of original albums. This one contains all the essential tracks.

Matt was Britain's best balladeer of the sixties. He had five UK top ten hits, these being Portrait of my love, My kind of girl, Softly as I leave you, Walk away and Yesterday. The Beatles' own version of Yesterday was not released as a UK single at the time although it was released in the USA (where it topped the charts) and eventually got a UK release in the mid-seventies. So Matt's version competed with several others but the only other one to chart was by Marianne Faithfull. Matt recorded several other Beatles songs, of which Michelle is included in this set.

Although it was only a comparatively modest hit (just making the UK top twenty), Matt's most famous recording is probably From Russia with love, a James Bond theme song. He recorded plenty of stage and screen songs during his career and on this collection you will find Matt's versions of Born free (from Born free) and Gonna build a mountain (from Stop the world and let me off), the last-named providing another minor UK hit for Matt.

Matt was an excellent interpreter of other people's songs and this collection includes his covers of several classic songs including I can't stop loving you, If I were a carpenter, Bridge over troubled water, All my loving, For once in my life and My way.

Several minor hits are missing so this is not a definitive collection but it contains all his big hits and everything else that casual buyers need.

If you enjoy the music of Nat King Cole, Andy Williams, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, it is likely that you will also enjoy listening to Matt Monro. This CD provides a good sampling of his music although I think that the budget collection (Very best of) provides better value for money. Do not be surprised if, once you've played it a few times, you end up buying more of his music.