Catalogue: JASMCD 3524
Price Code: A
Release Date: 01/10/2000
Bar Code: 604988 35242 9
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Burl IVESLavender Blue - Songs Of Charm, Humour And Sincerity
 
Given his range as an entertainer, it is no surprise
that the offerings here show Burl Ives as a versatile singer across the musical
spectrum. The folk repertoire is well represented with material like "The Riddle
Song" and "Sweet Betsy From Pike", both from the earliest part of Burl’s
recording career, as is the charming "I Know My Love". From a few years later
come the well-known "Blue Tail Fly", "Big Rock Candy Mountain" and "Foggy, Foggy
Dew", and even later "Mr. Froggie Went A-Courtin’". With the unfulfilled
prospect of becoming a ‘Singing Cowboy’ (the genre was over-subscribed by then),
in 1947 Burl recorded two Western-type songs, "It Makes No Difference Now" and
"I’m Thinking Tonight Of My Blues Eyes". Danny Kaye’s version of "The Little
White Duck" is perhaps better known than Burl’s, but both did the children’s
song justice. Other children’s songs here include "The Goat" and "The Rabbit",
although the last has a macabre finale. By contrast, and on a very serious note,
the conscripted songwriter Frank Loesser, a private in the U.S. Army, was asked
by the Infantry Corps to write a song celebrating their war-hero Rodger Young, a
young man who had recently died in the Pacific campaign. Burl Ives was the first
to record the song in February 1945, oddly at the same time recording just one
other, disparate number, "Foggy, Foggy Dew".Burl was only a spasmodic visitor to
the singles charts, scoring his biggest hit in 1961 with "A Little Bitty Tear".
In the late 1940s, he had some success with the gentle "Lavender Blue", also
with "Riders In The Sky". Here you have a very listenable cross-section of songs
by Burl Ives, each one treated by the master as of equal merit, whatever its
origins. Incidentally, the busy guitarist who adds so much to some of the
numbers is Tony Mottola, the highly respected jazz and session musician.
Price:
£5.99 / $9.88
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