After Midnight - Helen Grayco

You're My Thrill

After Midnight With Helen Grayco
Orchestra Conducted by Judd Conlon
Vik - A Product Of Radio Corporation Of America
LX-1066
1957

From the back cover: Let me (Tony Curtis) tell you something about Helen, our talented and decorative red-head. Helen treats each song as an individual emotional experience. Her favorite exponents of this type of musical expression are Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. Singing since childhood, it has always been the story in a song and the transmission of its emotional content that have been of the utmost importance to Helen. Certainly this emphasis on getting inside a song makes her lyric rendering the most telling facet of her singing style, and the key to its appeal. You'll gather this, certainly, in her interpretation of Take Me In Your Arms. You'll immediately want to take Helen up on her invitation.

Incidentally, it's amazing to listen to Helen on records, for her voice loses nothing of its intimate, lush, wonderful sounds that so thrilled all of us party fold at my house.

In discussing this album, Helen has informed me that the over-all feeling of the album was given due consideration. "But I mad a point of selecting songs that have a real meaning for me and would, therefore, be more personalized and individual in interpretation," Helen, the craftswoman, explained.

I want to tell you, too, that the arrangements of Russ Garcia provide Helen with comfortable, relaxed surroundings that help to bring out the quality of each particular melody. The instrumentation is slanted toward the soft and mellow and includes alto saxophone (played by Les Robinson), strings and rhythm. The rhythm section is comprised of players active on both jazz and studio levels in California: Jerry Wiggins, piano; Alvin Stoller, drums; Joe Mondragon, bass; Barney Kessel, guitar, and Larry Bunker, vibraharp. Russ utilized the various instruments and sections in relation to the song and the feeling it sets up for him and the singer. On the blue melancholy selections, Mood Indigo and Black Coffee, there is a mood-laden Robinson alto sound. For intimacy, the loose extemporary feeling of just the rhythm section on Glad To Be Unhappy, Midnight Sun, We'll Be Together Again. For wistful, lush background, the predominant use of strings on Last Night When We Were Young. Judd Conlon, who conducts the orchestra on this album, is Helen's vocal arranger, and Helen feels that Judd is largely responsible for her success on records and television. – Tony Curtis

Take Me In Your Arms
Mood Indigo
Glad To Be Unhappy
Every Time We Say Goodbye
While We're Young
Black Coffee
You're My Thrill
Good Morning Heartache
We'll Be Together Again
Last Night When We Were Young
Midnight Sun
You Don't Know What Love Is