Day Dreams - Doris Day

 

Day Dreams

Doris Day

Photo by Theda and Emerson Hall

Columbia Records CL 624

1955

From the back cover: When Doris Day was named as Success Of The Year by a musical magazine, there was no question whatever about the correctness of the choice. For in 1948, she zoomed from the equivocal position of a highly promising singer to that of one of the country's top recording artist and an established movie star on the strength of a handful of records and a single motion picture. This was partly because Doris brought to music and films a quality that had too long been mission, a sort of breezy freshness and an intimate directness of appeal. More important, it was suddenly discovered that she was a superlative songstress and an ingratiating performer.

Not that Doris hadn't been heard before: for several years she was featured vocalist with Les Brown and his orchestra, and built up a considerable reputation among musical for her deft and intelligent way with a popular song. A number of the recordings she mad with this orchestra – notably Sentimental Journey – are fondly prized by collectors. Doris landed with Les after a short engagement with Bob Crosby and his orchestra and a series of programs over Station WLW, Cincinnati. Her early enthusiasm for a career as a dancer was somewhat dampened by a broken leg, and she began studying singing with the vocal coach at WLKW, which led to her initial broadcasts and her tours with the orchestras. Toward the end of 1947, Doris left the Born organization to go out on her own, opening at the Little Club on New York's East Side. A recording contract of her own followed, then a movie contract, a spot on the Hit Parade with Frank Sinatra, and eventually a star spot on the Bob Hope radio program, again, singing with Les Brown. All the sin something less than eighteen months.

Since that time, she has one on to a truly remarkable ascent to the upper reaches of stardom. From her very first film appearance, she was a success, and went on to expose a variety of talents that not only included singing and musical-comedy-type performances, but dancing and a sensitivity in acting that could be envied by many purely dramatic performers. The last of her screen ummusicals is a long an imposing one, and includes some of the biggest money-makers that movies have released. Whether in biographical musical, charming evocations of the recent past of the fast-paced contemporary musical, she has given expert and completely winning portrayals.

Her singing, meanwhile, has kept pace, and she is one of the most artful and popular stars of her generation. It is a rare record of hers indeed that does not climb swiftly into the charmed circle of his, and the range they encompass is extraordinary. A slow, sentimental ballad like Secret Love or a roundelay like A Guy Is A Guy get equally deft treatment; her approach to either is thoroughly different, a yet inimitable hers. There are few stars who have attained such both on records and in films, and she is one of the finest.

You're My Thrill

Bewitched

Imagination

I've Only Myself To Blame

I'm Confessin'

Sometimes I'm Happy

You Go To My Head

I Didn't Know What Time It Was

If I Could Be With You

Darn That Dream

When Your Lover Has Gone

That Old Feeling