Great Songs Of Hawaii - Harry Owens

 

Hawaiian Paradise

Great Songs Of Hawaii

Harry Owens and The Royal Hawaiians

Cover Photo courtesy of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel

Engineer: Thorne Nogar

Hamilton HLP 141

A Division of Dot Records, Inc.

From the back cover: "Aloha," often described as the greatest word in any language, means many things, all of them good: Good morning, good afternoon, cheerio, sweet dreams, I love you and, eventually, good bye. And Harry Owens ("Mr. Hawaii," as he's called by many) has possibly done more than any other individual to bring the true meaning of "Aloha" to the world... and to bring the world to his beloved Hawaii.

In addition to being the most famous exponent of Island music, Mr. Owens is indubitably the most prolific writer of Hawaiian songs. Born in Nebraska, raised in Montana, "Mr. Hawaii" first gained fame as a songwriter non-Hawaiian hit, "Linger Awhile" which catapulted him from the study of law into a full time career as author, composer and conductor.

He first reached the shores of Polynesia in 1934. Organizing his now famous Royal Hawaiians, he remained the principal entertainment attraction at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, in Honolulu, from that year until 1940 when he took his large troupe of entertainers on a tour of the United States and Canada. His return to Hawaii in 1941 was thwarted by the tragedy of Pearl Harbor.

Continuing "stateside," Harry Owens and his Royal Hawaiians became a feature attraction in motion picture, distinguished hotels and on recordings. In the late 1940's, Harry became one of television's pioneers. His one hour weekly show – first board cast on a Hollywood station – grew in popularity until its coverage was expanded to the Western States and Hawaii. Consistently among the top-rated shows, an additional tribute to the popularity of Harry Owens and his Royal Hawaiians is his enviable record of 8 years of continuous sponsorship. At the time of semi-retirement in 1961, Owen's compositions totaled close to 300.

Recently, Hamilton Records prevailed upon Harry to emerge from retirement to make this album which includes 12 of his greatest hits. He interprets them with the authentic touch of author-composer and these renditions will not only evoke memories among the millions who have visited the Islands but will delight all lovers of sentimental and gently rhythmic music.

And so, in this album, Harry Owens – the man who virtually put Hawaii "on the map" and who has done more than any other single person to bring statehood to his beloved Island – continues his love song to the once far-away land which took him to its heart. This love song is also a paean of praise and thanks to the gentle Hawaiian people who adopted him.

Also from the back cover: The excellent trio heard in this album in comprised of Bill Cole, tenor; Gene Merlino, baritone and Bill Lee, also a baritone and leader of the group. Each is heard, additionally, in solos. Adding vocal support in certain passages are the Tavares Brothers – Ernest and Fred. Members of Harry Owen's original Royal Hawaiians in Honolulu, each not only sings but plays steel guitar, Spanish guitar and the ukulele.

The delightful soprano voice in this album belongs to Louie Jean Norman. In addition to the thrilling clarity of tone so evident in her solo and obligato passages, Miss Norman manages an almost incredible tonal accuracy throughout a rang which extends from the lower notes of contralto to those of coloratura soprano.

The other members of the outstanding group on this recording are Mannie Kline, trumpet; Gene Cipriano, Justin Gordon and Johnny Rotella, reeds; Morty Cobb, bass; Tommy Romersa, drums and Milt Rogers, celeste.

Sweet Leilani 

Hawaiian Hospitality 

Hawaii My Island

Cocoanut Grove

Dancing Under The Stars

My Isle Of Love

To You, Sweetheart, Aloha

Syncopated Hula Love Song

Voice Of The Trade Winds

Princess Poo-poo-ly Had Plenty Papaya

Hawaiian Paradise

Aloha Oe

Starring Al Hibbler

 

I Don't Stand A Ghost Of A Chance

Starring Al Hibbler

Vocal with Orchestra Directed by Jack Pleis

Decca Records DL 8328

1956

From the back cover: There is something magical and thoroughly original in the singing style of Al Hibbler. To put it into words what happens exactly when he opens his wonderful pipes is difficult at best.

His unique phrasing, his octave slides, his foggy, deep-throated quality, taken separately, might spell a limited performer. But add them up, together with Hibbler's highly personalized interpretation of a song – and what is says – and you have what is without question one of the most convincingly soulful, compelling voices in today's musical world.

Duke Ellington, an intellectual man with a gift for an occasional phrase, was so sold on what he called Hibbler's "tonal pantomime" that he featured him as his band singer for eight years.

Sytlewise, the Hibbler voice can never be narrowly categorized as pop, blues, or jazz. His is an "across the board" appeal which might better be simply labelled entertainment – as shown on the one hand by his smash successes in New York's Birdland, jazz headquarters for the throngs, and in other palaces of the night – but more impressively in his repeated returns to network TV via the Ed Sullivan show and his wide "all-market" appeal on single records as well as albums.

Other Al Hibbler albums have been made, it's true. But make no mistake, none can take the spotlight from the great new selection in this current Hibbler package. Here is the fascinating subject of love – love in various reflective moods. Here's the place perhaps where Hibbler shines, as jazzophiles would say, "the most!" – Red Grevatt

After The Light Go Low

I Don't Stand A Ghost Of A Chance

You'll Never Know

Night And Day

Pennies From Heaven

Shanghai Lil

Stella By Starlight

September In The Rain

Where Are You

Count Every Star

There Are Such Things

Where Or When

The 5 Satins Sing

 

I'll Remember

The 5 Satins Sing

Mount Vernon Music MVM 108

1961

I'll Remember

Our Anniversary

Wish I Had My Baby

Wonderful Girl

Sugar

I'll Get Along

To The Aisle 

Pretty Baby

Our Love Is Forever

Jones Girl

Weeping Willow

Moonlight & I

Stride Right - Johnny Hodges & Earl "Fatha" Hines

 

C Jam Blues

Stride Right

Johnny Hodges & Earl "Fatha" Hines

Produced by Creed Taylor

Cover Design: Acy Lehman

Cover Photo: Lee Friedlander

Engineer: Rude Van Gelder

Director Of Engineering: Val Valentin

Recorded January 14, 1966 at Rudy Van Gelders

Verve Records V-8647

Johnny Hodges - Alto Sax

Earl Hines - Organ and Piano

Kenny Burrell - Guitar

Richard Davis - Bass

Joe Marschall - Drums

From the back cover: Johnny Hodges and Earl Hines stride right through the lengthening history of jazz like giants. Very early in their brilliant careers, they were established as influential stylists. Alto saxophonists everywhere tried to sound like Hodges and piano players like Hines, but these two were naturally gifted intuitive whose forms of expression involved skills and meaning that could only be approximated in imitation. In the course of time, most of the imitators moved on to other models, but the originals continued to be themselves – very much themselves.

In each case, the style was the man. The man did not stand still, nor did he change. Maybe he put on different clothes as the Colgate altered – Earl Hines can Inba will play you a very pretty bossa nova, and Johnny Hodges will accommodate you over as funky a back beat as anyone could desire – but the man and his animus remained essentially the same.

Astonishingly, neither has tried. Running deep, deep, their veins of invention seem inexhaustible, and the chances and encounters of everyday life provide their inspiration. Their responses, of, in other words, their musical reflexes, are quick and sure, for they are true professionals in the jazz art of improvisation and variation. They know how, and they do it easily, without fuss, so that the listener is not always fully aware of what magic has been wrought before him.

There was not much need for talk when they came together in the studio. They knew each other's capabilities and understood one another. "Johnny and I have been friends a long time," Hines explained simply. The group's instrumentation necessitated no complicated routines, and there would normally be no second take unless someone goofed. An almost unconscious emphasis on spontaneity was allowed to develop as the session progressed, as Hodges surprised Hines on Hines territory, and vice versa. – Stanley Dance

Caution Blues (Blues In 3rds)

Stride Right

Rosetta

Perdido

Fantastic – That's You

Tale Of The Fox

I'm Beginning To See The Light

C Jam Blues

Tippin' In

Great Gershwin - The Sunset Brass

 

I Got Rhythm

Great Gershwin

The Sunset Brass

Art Direction: Woody Woodward

Design: Gabor Halmos

Cover Photography: Peter Wharf and George Jerman

Sunset Records SUS-5240

A Product of Liberty Records

1969

An American In Paris

The Man I Love

Fascinating Rhythm 

Embraceable You

Liza (All The Cloud Will Roll Away)

Strike Up The Band

But Not For Me

I Got Rhythm 

Someone To Watch Over Me

Clap Yo' Hands

Bob Crosby In Hi Fi

 

Louise Louise

Bob Crosby and His Orchestra

In Hi Fi

Coral Records CRL 57062

1956

Trumpets - Conrad Gozzo, Frank Beach, Charlie Teagarden, John Best, 

Trombones - Elmer Schneider, Abe Lincoln, Joe Howard

Alto Sax - Jack Dumont

Tenor Sax - Eddie Miller, Jack Chaney

Baritone Sax - Den Eckels

Clarinet - Matty Matlock

Piano - Al Pelegrini

Guitar - Al Hendrickson

Bass - Morty Corb

Drums - Jack Sperling

From the back cover: Of all the great bands that made the Swing Era swing, none was as completely individual as Bob Crosby's band. It was a band with a genuine ensemble personality, a style that was immediately identifiable and a unique flair for musical cross-breeding.

At the root of its style was something which would be dismissed as a contradiction in terms if the Crosby band hadn't actually proved it could happen – orchestrated Dixieland. It takes a lot of light, bright energy and sparkle to make a 14-piece band bounce and skip along like a little six or seven-piece two-beat group, and it is one of the miracles of big band jazz that the Corsbyites managed to do it. The band played many of the old Dixieland standards, of course, but it also went forging in all kinds of musical fields to find material to adapt to its own swinging purposes. And at the same time, new – or shined up – works kept pouring out of the band, the majority of them by Crosby's brilliant bassist, Bob Haggart.

An amazing number of these adaptations and originals are now looked on as jazz classics. Significantly, most of them have not been taken up by other bands but have maintained their fame simply on the basis of the way they were performed by the Crosby band, a band which was scattered to four winds in 1942 by the demands of World War II.

Twelve of these Crosby classics are given their first high fidelity recording in this album. To make them, Bob brought together a band that mixes a couple of the most distinctive stars of his original band with some of the best musicians-in residence on the West Coast. Matty Matlock's cream-toned clarinet and Eddie Miller's urgent tenor saxophone are in their accustomed places. The trumpet solos are the work of Charlie Teagarden, who might be called a premature Crosbyite: he as not actually in the original Crosby band but he was an important cog in the Ben Pollack band from which the nucleus of the Crosby band came. The big-voiced trombone, an essential element of the Crosby formula, is played here by Abe Lincoln who has been one of the lustier buffers and puffers for the past quarter of a century.

That the Crosby band was much more than an over-sized Dixie outfit can be seen from the range of this group of selections. They emphasize, among other things, the important role the Bob Haggart played in the band's success: Five of these pieces list the indefatigable Haggart as either composer of co-composer.

Ray Baud, the old Crosby drummer, and Matty Matlock helped Haggart write the flamboyant Smokey Mary, an uptempo framework for solos – on this occasion – by Matlock, Teagarden, Miller, Lincoln, pianist Al Pellegrini and drummer Jack Sperling. On Haggart's lazy Dogtown Blues, the familiar redd voicing of the Crosby band sneaks in between Charlie Teagarden's two solos and the piece winds up with a typical rich-hued Crosby ride-out ensemble.

What's New is best known now as a ballad but Haggart originally conceived it as an instrumental showcase for Billy Butterfield's trumpet. In those days, before Johnny Burke had turned out lyrics for it, it was called I'm Free. Charlie Teagarden takes over Billy Butterfield's solo role in this hi-fi version.

Haggart was involved as both performer and composer on The Big Noise From Winnetka. This was an odd duet for string bass and drums, cooked up by Haggart and Bauduc during the Crosby band's long stand at the Blackhawk Restaurant in Chicago, in which each man plumed some of the depths of his instrument until Baud turned to Haggart's bass and started whacking the strings with his drum sticks while Haggart nonchalantly handled the fingering. It got its title from a boisterous enthusiast from Winnetka, Ill., who always requested it when he visited the Blackhawk. This new 1956 arrangement brings the whole band into the picture, with Morty Corb and Jack Sperling taking over the bass and drum assignments.

Probably the greatest of Haggart's collaborative contributions to the band – and certainly the number which is most readily associated with the Crosby band – is the joyous South Rampart Street Parade, conceived in 1937. It is one of the few numbers in the Crosby Book which has proved transferable to other bands.

Of course, the Crosby band had other sources of inspiration besides the fertile Mr. Haggart. It paid close attention to the work of some of the relatively neglected buy nonetheless great jazz pianists. Two of the band's treatments of piano solos – Honky Tonk Train and Gin Mill Blues – are included in this collection. The lat Bob Burke used both of them to build his meteoric reputation while he was the Crosby pianist. Honky Tonk Train, one of the showpieces of the fabulous boogie-woogieist, Meade (Lux) Lewis, is played here by Marvin Ash with his customary light touch. Gin Mill Blues was – and still is – a Joe Sullivan specialty which came into the Crosby book while he was playing piano in the band. It is given a full-band arrangement here with some solo piano by Al Pellegrini and a couple of Matty Matlock's mellow clarinet solos.

One of the charming quirks of the Crosby band was its habit of taking tired, light classical warhorses and electrifying them with a rambunctious two-beat. The Old Spinning Wheel and Skater's Waltz were two of the most successful ventures in this vein and the 1956 Crosbyites tangle with them with that full-bodies zest that has always typified the band's approach to these tunes. In the same spirit, the band picked up a novelty number from overseas that Rudy Valle had been crooning, Vieni, Vieri, and battered the croon out of it, leaving a jumping musical skeleton which is decorated by solos by each of the four featured horn men.

Besides all this, there was always the blues, of course. The Crosby band had a fine collection of lowdown blues but somehow, in their nimble hands even the lowest and downest blues came out with a wry cheerfulness. Louise, Louise and Milk Cow Blues are prized samples of this special talent, augmented here by the singing of Eddie Miller and Nappy Lamar respectively.

Considering the passage of years and changes they have brought in musical tastes, these are amazingly faithful reproductions of a style and feeling in big band jazz that seemed to have disappeared from the scene when the original Crosby band broke up. But here it is back again, large as life and more brilliantly recorded than it has ever been before. – John S. Wilson

Smokey Mary

Dogtown Blues

Honky Tonk Train

Louise, Louise

What's New

The Old Spinning Wheel

Skater's Waltz

Big Noise From Winnetka

Milk Cow Blues

Vieni Vieni

Gin Mill Blues

South Rampart Street Parade

Whispers - Jackie Wilson

 

Tears Will Tell It All

Whispers

Jackie Wilson

Arranged by Sonny Sanders

Vocals with Chorus and Orchestra Conducted by Gerald Sims

Produced by Carl Davis

Cover Photo by Hal Buksbaum

Chung Hwa Records CH-3091

1967

I Don't Want To Lose You

My Heart Is Calling

Who Am I

Whispers

The Fairest Of Them All

(Too Much) Sweet Loving (Vocal with Chorus and Orchestra by Alan Lorber)

I Can Do Better

Just Be Sincere

Only Your Love Can Save Me

To Make A Big Man Cry (Vocal with Chorus and Orchestra Directed by Dick Jacobs - Produced by Nat Ternopol)

I've Gotta Talk To You

Tears Will Tell It All

I Still Believe In Tomorrow - John & Anne Ryder

 

Seasons In The Sun

I Still Believe In Tomorrow

John & Anne Ryder

Arranged by Cy Payne

Produced by Mark Edwards

Engineers: Ted Sharp & Peter Gallen

Recorded at IBC and Lansdown Studios, London, England

Special Thanks to Pat Halling, Rex Bennett, Graham Todd

Decca Records DL 75167

1969

I Still Believe In Tomorrow

It's Getting Better

Everybody's Talkin'

Seasons In The Sun (Le Moribond)

Let It Be Me

All The Love I Have

Don't Forget To Remember

A Thing Called Love

A Sign For Love

Early In The Morning

Some Town

Universal Record No. 101

 

Universal Record No. 101

Universal Record No. 101

Summertime In The City - Loving Spoonful

Sunny - Bobby Herb

Mother's Little Helper - Rolling Stones

Somewhere My Love - Ray Conniff Singers

They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha-haa - Napoleon XIV

Please Tell Me Why - Dave Clark Five

Wild Thing - Trigs

This Door Swings Both ways - Hermit's Hermits

Sweet Dreams - Tommy McLain

Summertime - Billy Stewart

Hungry - Paul Revere & Raiders

You Can't Hurry Me - Supremes

Universal Record No. 102

 

Universal Record No. 102

Universal Record No. 102

Sunshine Superman - Donovan

Guantanamera - The Sandpipers

Working In The Coal Mine - Lee Dorsey

Bus Stop - Hollies

Land Of 1,000 Dances - Wilson Pickett

Respectable - The Outsiders

See You In September - The Happenings

Yellow Submarine - The Beatles

Wade In The Water - Ramsey Lewis Trio

Say I Am (What I Am) - Tommy James & Shondells

Wipe Out - The Ventures

The Dangling Conversation - Simon & Garfunkel

Three Of A Kind - Leadbelly, Broonzy, White

 

How Long

When I Lay Down & Die Do Die

Baby, Please Don't Go

Three Of A Kind

Top Stars Of Folk Songs

Leadbelly, Bill Broonzy, Josh White

Design Records DLP-903

1963

How Long - Leadbelly

John Henry - Leadbelly & Blind Sonny Terry

Don't Lie Budy - Leadbelly & Josh White

Ain't You Glad - Leadbelly

Letter To My Baby - Bill Broonzy

St. James Infirmary Blues - Josh White

Lass With The Delicate Air - Josh White

When I Lay Down & Die Do Die - Josh White

Early Morning Blues - Josh White

Baby, Please Don't Go - Bill Broonzy

So Danco Samba - Clare Fischer

 

Pensativa

So Danco Samba

Clare Fischer

A Richard Bock Production

Album Design & Photography by Woody Woodward

Audio by Richard Bock

Yamaha Piano courtesy Dave Abell Pianos

Recorded at World-Pacific Studios

World-Pacific Records 1830

1964

From the back cover: The Bossa Nova has just completed an interesting cycle on the hands of commerciality in the united states. This delicate and highly original music, as exemplified by the contributions of Brazil's Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim, began to gain a coterie of enthusiasts here as early as 1962, and subsequently there were several commendable recordings of it made by jazzmen, blending an intriguing combination of improvisation with the gentle samba rhythm and melodies. Pianist Clare Fischer collaborated with Bud Shank and guitarist Joe Pass for two fine albums (PJ 58 and 64) in this time. Thereafter, however, things began to get a bit out of hand as nearly every major jazz musician and quite a few singers and rock-and-roll performers were in a sense almost forced into trying themselves (and us) with their versions of the bossa nova. I've repressed much of what happened under the name of bossa nova from mid-1963 to mid-1964, as I guess quite a few other people were doing, the result was that the word began to pass among commercial centers of th industry that this fad called bossa nova, like all fads, was grinding to a halt, so what is next. In the wide world of jukeboxville, I have no idea what is next, nut I do know this: bossa nova is an authentic evolvement of a complex and extremely subtle music which has grown our of the old music of Brazil over a long period of time. It is no more a fad than jazz or classical music are fads. You can beat it, change it, misinterpret it, making it, or try to "sell" it, but when you are finished you will find that all you were doing was trapping around on the surface of a very stable form of artistic expression. As with all such forms, if you treat it right it responds in kind and if you try to force it, it just sits there and waits for empathy. Stan Getz, Joao and Astrud Gilberto, Antonio Carlos, Jobim and now once again, Clare Fischer easily demonstrate what this empathy entails. And the result is that we are again, for a time, at least, in for some real contributions in the U. S. in the realm of the bossa nova.

The present album is, so far as I know, the first bossa nova recording to be devoted entirely to extended improvisation by a pianist, and we are fortunate indeed that this has been accomplished by the jazz man most clearly attuned to the esthetics of this Brazilian music. While I should hardly wish to detract from the great artistry which is that of Stan Getz, the tenor saxophonist widely acclaimed for his efforts in the bossa nova, at the same time it is abundantly clear to those familiar with the total musical contributions of Getz, that he merely plays himself (and the same himself) in all musical settings. It is then a fortunate coincidence that his tone color and way of playing compliment so nicely the essence of the bossa nova. Pianist Ficher on the other hand has several musical faces derived from his long study and close association with jazz, classical, and folk music of many countries. No person that I know can so completely involve himself with and become such an integral part of the art of another people, and indeed their language, customs, and very social innards, as can Clare Fischer. Thus, when he goes about the preparation of an album such as this one, it is as far from the idea of "let's go in the studio and blow a few bossas" as you could hope for. The result is a beautiful example of the music called bossa nova.

Fischer has chosen to play a program consisting of seven works by the foremost Brazilian composer of bossa nova melodies, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and three of his own compositions in the same idiom. There is a striking homogeneity in the program resulting from the fact that Fischer and Jobim exhibit a remarkable gift for creating memorable melodies. Jobim's Girl From Ipanema and Desafinado that almost all listeners have found lodged in their minds in recent months are good examples, and although less well known, I expect you'll find Clare's Ornithardy and Pensativa similarly catchy. All are in this album. Both Fischer and Jobim tend to structure their composition in forms other than the standard forms that nine-tenths of popular song material appear in. Now, while most composers can write in such less common forms easily, few have the gift of making these seem so right and increasingly attractive to the lay listener. At the same time, it is these fresh forms that attract original and provoking improvisation from the performer who has become jaded by the ordinary.

Two recent events in Clare Fischer's active musical life serve to point out the trueness of Fischer's approach to the bossa nova and latin music in general and emphasize why I feel certain if you like the bossa nova that you will have an enjoyable experience with this recording. Clare while working in the musical production for the Andy Williams television show had opportunity to meet Jobim, a guest on the program, for the first time. Jobim then went to the piano and played Fischer's Joao, complete with Clare's introduction, while singing the words Fischer had put to the tune for the Hi-Los bossa nova album! The second is perhaps not been exposed in the music press, Fischer has recently returned from a five-week tour of Argentina, where he played both jazz and latin music in concert, recorded several of his own compositions, and lectured and played before audiences in both large and small towns across northern Argentina in part under the sponsorship of the American Embassy. Because of his love for the latin countries and his fluency in Spanish, wherever he went the response to his playing and words were extremely gratifying. Clare's Argentinian producer, Walter Theirs, accompanied him on much of the tour and in part of the program narrated a short history of jazz piano while Fischer played appropriate examples of forms ranging from Ragtime to Lennie Tristano and himself. Throughout the tour Fischer found an acceptance and enthusiasm for his efforts within the bossa nova form, in the area not only of playing by of composition and arrangement, that brought him back to this country confident in the validity of continuing his efforts in this music.

Fischer's accomplishment in this recording is provided by three of the very strongest men on their respective instruments. Drummer Colin Bailey, a transplanted British lad of considerable wit and humor, has had an exceedingly active career since reaching these shores. He has worked with, among others, Victor Feldman and Miles Davis and has recorded previously with Clare. Recently he has authored a book on bass drum techniques and is considered to be one of the great new technicians of his instrument as well as one of the more sensitive performers in a variety of musical settings. Bassist Bobby West has been Clare's steady sideman for nearly two years, replacing Ralph Pena and Gary Peacock in that capacity. Simultaneously he has gained a reputation as one of the very best young bassists to appear in jazz and the studios in recent time. He has worked and recorded with Gary Burton and Larry Bunker as well as Clare Fischer and had brief to extended stints with Shelly Manne, the Gerald Wiggins trio, and Bud Shank. As for guitarist Dennis Budimir, I have, as many will know, been a leading proponent among writers of this musician's work for four years. He is a completely original jazz guitarist without peer who works beautifully her win the entirely rhythmic role called for. As a group these men from a nearly faultless rhythm section for the bossa nova. Colin' drums are light and lifting, Bobby's bass, rock solid and pulsing, and Dennis' lovely Ramirez flamenco guitar sound (the pride of his life) makes strumming, humming poetry. If Clare Fischer had failed to create memorable solos on this foundation it would have been an awful waste. No worries there, of course, as you will hear for yourself. – John William Hardy

So Danco Sambo

Desafinado

Quiet Nights

Pensativa

Carnivel

Girl From Ipanema

Ornithardy

Amor Em Paz

How Insensitive

One Note Samba

I Got Rhythm - Johnny Nash

 

Looking For A Girl

I Go Rhythm

Johnny Nash

Orchestra Conducted by Nick Perito

Arranged and Produced by Don Costa

Photo: Gerard Oppenheimer

ABC-Paramont ABCS 299

1959

From the back cover: One of the nation's foremost record reviewers recently stated that, in this day and age of lesser-talent successes, it is a profound delight to hear the voice of Johnny Nash...

At the age of seventeen, Johnny has now achieved the remarkable record of succeeding in no less than three simultaneous tangents of show business: in television, as a regular member of the cast of The Arthur Godfrey Show; in motion pictures, as the featured star of the Hecht-Hill-Lancaster production, Take A Giant Step; and, of course, on records, with a long string of consistently fine performances.

The danger which any performer learns to fear in the entertainment business is to be "typed" – to be classified as a "one-role" star. While the classical quality of Johnny's voice has led to critical and public acclaim as "one of the greatest balladeers of our time," and "a voice of pure, golden mellowness," it would be folly to assume that Johnny is limited to ballads and the "slow beat." The youngster has loved singing all types of songs ever since he was old enough to walk, and still raises his voice in song wherever he happens to be, sometimes completely oblivious to his surroundings. At such times, one is apt to hear such extreme renditions of repertoire as Ave Maria and Eili, Eili to I Got Rhythm and Them There Eyes! To Johnny's way of thinking, a singer is a singer – and any performer of the vocal part should be prepared to render any and all types of material.

This is Johnny's third appearance in album form (Johnny Nash – ABC-244: The Quiet Hour – ABC-276) and the first two sets comprised sentimental and "ballady" tunes, 'tis true. The first album received tremendous acceptance, since it was "typical" Nash repertoire, to his fans' way of thinking. His second set, The Quiet Hour, was greeted with equal enthusiasm, and contained an inspirational group of sacred and secular songs, sung as only Johnny can sing them.

In this album, you will hear "the other side of Johnny Nash," it would seem, since it represents his demonstration of what is his latent talent. To those who know him well, the fact that this set is comprised of down-to-earth, real beat selections, his performances here will come as no great surprise.

On the other hand, if you haven't heard the wonderful opportunity to see and hear this handsome, charming and gentlemanly artist in person, you will be pleasantly astounded to learn that Johnny' Got Rhythm – with a capital Nash! – Natt Hale

I Got Rhythm

You're Driving Me Crazy

Jeepers Creepers

'S Wonderful

Baby, Won't You Please Come Home? (Arranged by Sy Oliver)

Looking For A Girl

And The Angels Sing

I'm Beginning To See The Light

I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles

It's All Right With Me

(You've Got) The Love I Love

Baby, Baby, Baby