Wood By The Fire - Gloria Wood

The Wrong Blues

Wood By The Fire
Gloria Wood
Music Arranged And Conducted By Jerry Fielding
Columbia CL 1286
1959

Fielding finely tuned his excellent arrangements to Wood's vocal style as did Columbia's engineering staff. This is one well thought out set.

From Billboard - March 23, 1959: The steamy-voiced canary serves up a batch of memorable standards in a rich, warmly romantic style. Spinable jockey wax.

From the back cover: This kind of mastery has been Gloria Wood's for some time now, for despite her youth she has been swinging for more than a decade. In the very beginning, she lied about her age to enter a Horace Heidt competition, and won the contest handily. Thereafter she sang with bands like those of Frank DeVol, Lex Baxter, Hal McIntyre and Kay Kyser, and, believe it or not, it was her voice on the multi-million Kyser recording of Woody Woodpecker. She has also sung with Jud Conlon's Rhythmaries, and in Hollywood has been the singing voice of Marilyn Monroe, Vera-Ellen and Betty Grable. In addition, she has done countless commercials for radio and television. With such a background it is not surprising that she can inflect her songs so accurately; it is only surprising that she remained relatively unknown.

This was taken care of when she made a record with jazz trumpeter Pete Condole, called Hey, Bellboy. In this record, she used her range and warmth to echo the trumpet phrases with extraordinary agility, and found herself widely-known almost overnight. That same vocal technique is put to use here on less pyrotechnic material, but with perhaps even more exciting results. There is more than a touch of jazz in her work, a quiet humor and a genuinely engaging personality. It has been remarked that listening to her is a little like having one's temples rubbed...

Painting The Town With The Blues
It's Monday Every Day
A Stranger In Town
It's The Talk Of The Town
But Not For Me
In A Sentimental Mood
Penny Dream Blues
Mean To Me
I Got It Bad
I Don't Want To Cry Anymore
The Wrong Blue
Good-bye