Kay Starr With Harold Mooney And His Orchestra

 

The Prisoner's Song

Kay Starr

With Harold Mooney and His Orchestra

RCA Camden CAL-567

1960

From the back cover: Launched with this Indian heritage at Dougherty, Oklahoma, in 1922, as Kathryn Starks, the girl who became famous as Kay Starr first moved to Dallas and then to Memphis, absorbing all the exciting musical sounds she heard along the route. She got her first money for singing when she was thirteen by winning five dollars on a radio amateur program in Dallas. In those days she was a hillbilly singer – "authentic hillbilly," she explains, "that is, yodeling."

She became a professional vocalist in high school, singing on Memphis station WREC. Just turned eighteen, Kay and two records with Glenn Miller's orchestra (Baby Me and Love With A Capitol "You"). This was a fill-in stint for Glenn's regular vocalist, Marion Hutton, but it led to regular singing with Bob Crosby's band and Joe Venuti's band. In 1943 she joined Charlie Barnet for a two-year run that brought her to the attention of dancers and jazz fans all across the country, for this was a period when Mad Man had one of his best bands.

A serious throat ailment in 1945 kept her from sining for more than a year. When Kay recovered , she struck out as as single with a voice which had acquired an interestingly rough quality from her illness and an understanding of what she wanted to do in music that had been deepened by a year of careful, honest thought.

"I have a great love for lyrics," she once said, describing her approach to music. "It's hard for me to sing any song in which the lyrics don't make sense to me. And I like songs which have to do with life. After all, a singer is no more than an actor or actress set to music."

With this insight and a flexible, vital voice with which to project her songs, Kay moved rapidly to that special top rung of popular singers and has stayed there ever since.

Nowadays Kay tries to stay within easy commuting distance of her comfortable California home and her 12-year-old daughter, Kathy. There she cooks, paints, sails her sloop and plays golf. ("I can break 100 if I break my back.") She limits her professional work to records, an occasional TV appearance and engagements at clubs that are not too far from the home around which her life now revolves because, as she says, "I've served my apprenticeship as a gypsy." – Notes by Ramsey Stuart

From Billboard - February 1, 1960: The thrush packs plenty of lusty vitality and rich vocal quality into a group of memorable standards and oldies – "Fit As A Fiddle," "I'll Never Say Never Again Again," "Wrap Your Troubles In Dream," etc. Excellent jockey wax and a solid rack item.

Fit As A Fiddle

A Hundred Years From Today

Once More

The Prisoner's Song

Without A Song

I'll Never Say "Never Again" Again

I Want A Little Boy

Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams

Georgia On My Mind

You Can Depend On Me