Customer Reviews

1928-1930 (Great Original Performances)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one great album! If you love music from this era, then this one is a must. From the moment you hear Get Out And Get Under The Moon, which is the first song on this cd, you will be hooked! The quality is outstanding. An Australian sound engineer by the name of Robert Parker managed to extract high quality stereo sound from the early 78 rpm records without completely losing that wonderful 'old' sound. When I first listened to this cd, I couldn't believe that these songs were the originals, her voice is so clear. But sure enough, when I read the cd insert, which has a good bit of info on her life, I found that these are indeed original recordings. Check this album out, you will be glad that you did. Happy Listening! :} MsMudBug36

Can't get enough of Betty Boop's squeaky "Boop-boop-be-doop" voice? Although the Helen Kane on this CD was NOT the voice of Betty Boop in Max Fleischer's famous cartoons, she was obviously a powerful influence on Mae Questal who became Betty Boop's voice. The similarity between the two is striking! They're almost the same, except Betty Boop was perhaps just a bit squeakier.

This CD collects in one place all the recordings Helen Kane made for Victor Records in the late 1920s. Every tune is a little gem, and although I wouldn't recommend listening to the entire CD all at once, it's great to pull out at parties or to play a few selections every now and then. My favorite on the disc is "I'd Do Anything For You."

Although these recordings were originally made monaurally, producer Robert Parker has applied his famous "stereo" effect to all tracks. This is good and bad, and this is why I only gave the disc three stars. When listening to the disc through a good stereo system with loudspeakers, the artificial stereo sound is acceptable and gives the recordings a more "live" sound. However, I find that whenever I listen to the disc with headphones, I get a tremendous headache that forces me to turn the CD off after only a few minutes. On headphones, the stereo separation sounds very artificial and unnatural--it sounds unbalanced and an indescribable "deaf spot" seems present in each ear. Something in the recording seems to be missing. In the notes to the CD, Mr. Parker claims that the stereo effect can be undone, should the listener not like it, if the right and left channels are combined equally. I have done this, but once the two channels are combined, there still exists a great deal of reverb that was not in the original recordings that becomes annoying after a while. In addition, Mr. Parker seems to have tried to eliminate every trace of surface noise from the original recordings, leaving these tracks sounding somewhat muddy.

I love Helen Kane's recordings, but I'm not thrilled with the "modernization" technique Robert Parker has applied to them. Won't somebody issue these recordings--as originally recorded--cleanly restored in original mono without artificial reverb? For casual listening in the car or on the home stereo, this disc is o.k., but for those who want Helen Kane in the best, most natural sound quality possible, it looks like you'll still have to scour the 78 rpm auction catalogues or local antique stores.

These late-20s recordings by Helen Kane were extremely well recorded (by Victor) for their time. How horrible that Robert Parker should turn back the clock to the ghastly "fake stereo" era of the early 60s. Fake echo has also been added to the muddy, over-equalized tracks to the point where they are barely listenable. Two stars for the content alone.