Customer Reviews

30th Anniversary Collection: His All Time Greatest Hits:

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Upon recommendations of several Amazon.com reviewers, I bought this Paul Anka 30th Anniversary Collection. I am listening to it right now. It is great to hear the early songs in their ABC Paramount original versions, rather than the RCA re-do's a few years later. Don Costa's orchestra is there in all its glory, conjuring up all my old teenage memories. (I was a small-town part-time disc jockey at the time and did a Paul Anka Birthday Show for two or three consecutive years.)

Of course, it is also good to hear the RCA originals and those from United Artists and the one from Buddah. Originals: That's the key.

Rhino Records has done an outstanding compilation job once again. As one reviewer suggested, now how about a 4-CD set by someone at sometime?

This album is the only one I have seen which has the original hits, not re-created. A fine addition to my music collection.

One of the things that distinguished Paul Anka from the vast majority of his contemporaries was the fact that he wrote most of the songs he recorded. This was true both in his heyday in the late 1950's and early 1960's as well as during his improbable comeback in the 1970's. Paul Anka's "30th Anniversary
Collection" is truly a celebration of the man and his music. Anka's early recordings for ABC-Paramount truly captured the flavor of that era. Anyone who grew up during those years has a very special place in their hearts for such classics as "Put Your Head On My Shoulder", "Lonely Boy" and of course his 1957 summertime smash "Diana". His chart success continued pretty much uninterrupted until he departed ABC-Paramount late in 1961. Anka moved on to RCA records who had extremely high hopes for him. As often happens when artists switch labels, the move simply did not work out. Despite a couple of fairly big hits in 1962, Anka failed to distinguish himself for the remainder of the decade. A short stint at Buddah also proved unproductive.
Then in 1974, Anka re-emerged with a vengeance with an unlikely hit "You're Having My Baby". Much to everyones surprise, the tune became Anka's first number one song in 15 years. His new label, United Artists, promoted him heavily and Anka followed up with three more Top Ten tunes. Rhino has done a magnificent job in putting together a retrosepective of this very important artist. The disc includes 24 of his very best. Among my favorites are 1961's "Dance On Little Girl"
and his 1975 hit "Times of Your Life". You may recall that Kodak used this in it's commercials for quite some time. Also included is the extremely hard to find "The Teen Commandments",
a 1958 hit recorded with his ABC-Paramount labelmates George Hamilton IV and Johnny Nash. I was a bit disappointed that Rhino did not include Anka's final Top 40 hit from 1983 "Hold Me 'Til The Mornin' Comes". In conclusion, I was quite pleased with the remastering job and the 8 page booklet included in this package. I would be quite surprised if you can find a better collection of Anka's work anywhere else.

Paul Anka has writing some of the greatest songs ever.this set reflects that.Diana is still a classic as is My Way.a must have.

Growing up in the Ottawa area in the 1950s, one of my favourite haunts was Andy Anka's club across the river in Angers, Quebec and, from time to time, we'd see Paul there. We also played a bit of hockey against him during his Fisher Park high school days [he was a goaltender], and saw some of his earliest performances with a group called The Bobby Soxers at the Central Canada Exhibition around 1955/56.

His talent even then was apparent, and so it was no surprise when his very first record, I Confess b/w the oddly-titled Blau-Wildeveest Fontaine [a South African location in the novel Prestor John] received considerable airplay in the area. Released by Modern Records in 1956 it wasn't a national hit, but that and his renowned determination did serve to bring him to the attention of Don Costa and ABC-Paramount Records.

The first effort there was Diana, about his babysitter in Ottawa, and the rest, as they, was history. Diana herself capitalized on her new-found fame by opening the Diana Grill after the record shot to # 1 on both the Billboard Pop Top 100 and R&B charts in the summer of 1957.

His follow-up disc, I Love You, Baby. did not fare even remotely as well, reaching just # 97 that December. But then came You Are My Destiny [# 7 Top 100/# 14 R&B early in 1958] and, in short order, the double-sided hit Crazy Love [# 15] and its flip Let The Bells Keep Ringing [# 16] in June 1958.

From there to 1983 he would chalk up another 48 Pop Hot 100 singles, four of which would also cross over to the R&B charts [tracks 7, 8, 9, and 12], and from 1969 to 1984 some 20 would make the Adult Contemporary charts. He would do all that for seven different labels - ABC-Paramount, RCA Victor, Buddah, Fame, Epic, United Artists, and Columbia.

So, it's obvious that this otherwise fine AAD effort from Rhino barely puts a dent in his long list of hit singles. But it's a good start and hopefully will lead to other volumes. There are five pages of liner notes written by Ellis Widner, entertainment editor of The Tulsa Tribune and co-author of The Oak Ridge Boys: Our Story. On the reverse of the CD is a discography of the contents.

The only non-Anka hit in the package is My Way [more closely associated with Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley]. As another reviewer points out, this was not Anka's composition alone, having been written earlier by the French team of Thibault, Revaux, and Francois, although Paul did compose the English words.

Well worth having for all fans of Paul Anka.

While I can't argue with any of the choices on this CD, and it IS nice to see his ABC Paramount releases in their original format, Paul Anka charted too many songs for just one CD. And, at 69 minutes, 3, possibly 4 more songs could easily have been added. "I Miss You So" (a hit from the '40's and also sung by Little Anthony in 1965), the classic "Hello Young Lovers" and from the RCA era, "A Steel Guitar And A Glass Of Wine" would have been 3 of the obvious choices.

Growing up I would always play both sides of a new 45 RPM and several of Paul Anka's flip sides stand out for my money. "Don't Gamble With Love," "Don't Ever Leave Me," "Adam And Eve," which actually charted in at #90 as the flip side of "Puppy Love" and the double sided "Kissin' On The Phone"/"Cinderella" are songs I remember really liking. "Something Happened," a song that Dean Stewart tried to make a go of, also charted at #41 and was the flip side of "My Home Town." All of the aforementioned are worthy of admission to this CD. Again, there just isn't enough room. So, in my opinion, nothing short of a 2 CD set (each 79 minutes) would warrant 5 stars from me.

This package covers Paul's career from his days as supremely confident teenager through the hitless gap in the 60's, his welcome reemergence in the 70s and forward. I recommend it but have to deduct a star for not including "A Steel Guitar and A Glass of Wine", a 1962 song rightfully included on his "Best" compilations. One of several other songs could have been sacrificed to include that distinct one; otherwise, this is a good compilation.

I've order Paul Anka CD's previously and was disappointed to find out, after purchase, that some cuts were not original recordings. This one is all original and the songs bring me back to my high school days wnen folks danced close. Great Music!

This goes through most of his original hit recordings and also covers many of the other things he recorded which I am getting to like for the first time. It ends with "My Way", a live version, which is quite good. I just saw him live in Nashville, he was great, and I am enjoying the CD even more now. As for "My Way", his bio. on A&E says he found the melody, but wrote new words for Frank Sinatra.

I have never considered myself a Paul Anka fan,but I had a cassette titled "Very Best Of" and I was looking to upgrade to CD and this seemed like the best option.Much has been said about his sappy Seventies hits being unlistenable(especially "(You're)Having My Baby"),but I actually prefer this material to his late '50s early '60s hits,the worst of which is undoubtedly "Puppy Love".That song,along with "Diana"(featuring the line,"I'm so young and you're so old";I'll bet audiences chuckle when he sings that nowadays)and "The Teen Commandments",for me represent the nadir of his recording career.Having said that though,Paul Anka was unique in that he wrote most of his material(as well as songs for others,such as Connie Francis and Annette Funnicello)and he certainly knew how to appeal to the teen market(albeit mostly white girls).His good looks couldn't have hurt either.Since most of his hits were in the late '50s early '60s,the bulk of this disc contains that material.Like other teen idols of his day,he simply was unable to compete with the British Invasion of the mid-'60s.He did,however,make a remarkable comeback in the mid-'70s.My favorite song from that era is "Times Of Your Life"(which was also used as a Kodak commercial).This collection is designed to appeal to people who are familiar with all phases of Mr. Anka's career.While I find the earlier stuff hard to listen to,I realize that it's an essential part of a thorough overview which is exactly what this disc is.It's nice for collectors to have it all on a handy single disc.