Customer Reviews

Best of Mercury Years

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this cd runs over 76 minutes, and showcases tony martins great song selections for mercury, a pity the digital remastering by polygram is so poor compared to the recent (2) cd release of rca tracks by( collectors choice) which is superb, if only they had done this collection!

This is one of a series known as The Mercury Years, the others being Eddy Howard, Ralph Marterie, The Crew Cuts, The Diamonds, The Gaylords, Vic Damone, The Penguins, The Danleers, and The Del-Vikings. Most contain 25 selections.

Like the one for The Penguins, however, who never even had a hit single while with Mercury, Tony Martin was almost as non-productive while with that label, registering just two of his 38 hits singles for Mercury. Both came in 1946 when To Each His Own, with The Starlighters, went to # 4 in late summer, and Rumors Are Flying hit the # 9 spot late that fall. The 25 selections here, therefore, seem a bit much.

After posting one hit for the Decca subsidiary Brunswick in 1938, then five on the main Decca label from 1939 to 1942, he returned to the charts after the war with the above two for Mercury, and then switched to RCA Victor where he would chalk up 30 more, th last coming in 1957.

Completist collectors will like this for the two Mercury sides, and for those who are simply fans of Tony the selections are pleasant and the liner notes extremely interesting. Now all we need is a compilation covering his Decca years and one for the RCA years which include ALL his hits there.

Tony Martin is a magnificent singer. The 25 songs on this CD are mostly covers of romantic, slower tempo ballads like "Stardust" and "As Time Goes By." There is nothing to fault in Tony's gorgeous performances. However, the remastering leaves a lot to be desired. The tracks sound tired and scratchy.

If you're just starting a Tony Martin collection, you would probably prefer "The Best of Tony Martin on RCA." That one contains two disks with a nice mix of Tony's ballads and uptempo numbers (including more of his big hits), with brilliant sound quality.

If you already have the RCA set, then this CD, "Tony Martin The Mercury Years" would make a nice companion. I believe the only overlap between the two is "As You Desire Me." It's a shame that so much of the dynamic singing is lost in the poor quality of the recording.

This is a very sad effort. If ever a song lends itself to emoting, ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE surely does! Tony Martin manages to produce a totally bland--even boring rendition. Annoyingly, he does not sing the verse, either. I must presume his first run-through is sung in Kern's original key and Martin is unable to hit the high note. On his second run-through there is a perfectly hideous, unanticipated change of key--I mean, does he have a tuning-fork in his ear?--presumably done in order for him to finally hit: "When all the things you ARE (the high note) are mine." It's a beautiful song and this is disappointing.