Born To Be With You / Streetheart [Original recording remastered, Import]

DION | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 5, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered, Import
• Label: Ace Records UK
• ASIN: B000059RHW
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #72,729 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #44 in Music > Indie Music > Rock > Oldies & Retro

Track Listings

1. Born To Be With You

2. Make The Woman Love Me

3. Your Own Back Yard

4. (Hes Got) The Whole World In His Hands

5. Only You Know

6. New York City Song

7. In And Out Of The Shadows

8. Good Lovin Man

9. Baby Lets Stick Together (Bonus Track)

10. The Way You Do The Things You Do

11. Runaway Man

12. Queen Of 59

13. If I Can Just Get Through Tonight

14. More To You (Than Meets The Eye)

15. You Showed Me What Love Is

16. Hey My Love

17. Oh The Night

18. Ill Give You All Ive Got

19. Lover Boy Supreme

20. Streetheart

Editorial Reviews

(2 albums on 1 CD) Dion fans have long been awaiting the release on CD of the albums from his Warner Brothers years in the 1970s. The wait is over with the coupling of his legendary Phil Spector-produced Born To Be With You with Streetheart. Born... remains one of his rarest albums, and it contains two non-Spector productions, Your Own Back Yard & New York City Song, done in a folk style, added to the album to break up the somber mood. On this release, the non-LP Spector production Baby Let's Stick Together is also included. Streetheart, from 1976, was done in Dion's more folksy style.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Only we know - how good he is, June 5, 2001

By 

B. N. Roberts "oldbazza" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Born To Be With You / Streetheart (Audio CD)

I fell in love with THE VOICE in 1961 and bought everything since - including the gospel stuff. I've just taken delivery of Born To Be With You on CD and found a gem that I'd missed on vinyl. The intro on Only You Know is one of Spector's greatest and then in comes Dion!!!! I've been playing it all night and it makes me feel 14 again. Bloody fantastic!!!!!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning masterpiece...Bravo Dion!, July 12, 2004

By 

Bradly Briggs (TOLUCA LAKE, CALIFORNIA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Born To Be With You / Streetheart (Audio CD)

Soulful and magnificant Dion is throughout "Born To Be With You" masterpiece, giving the most illuminating & soulful performances of his brilliant career to date. Engrossing and passionate in great opener "Born To Be With You", Dion has always been one of my all time favorite male singers and this wondrous gem should have been a huge hit but like the Tina Turner Spector produced classic "River Deep, Mountain High", radio refused to play this awesome gem for some strange reason. Anyone with an appreciation for great music will go completely nuts over this masterwork and "Make The Woman Love Me" is a soul-deep riveting performance that is stunning and completely stirring with Dion at his peak in this passionate classic. Fighting off addictions successfully, self-penned "Your Own Back Yard" is revealing while Dion's uniquely original take with "(He's Got)The Whole In His Hands" is hypnotic and mesmerizing. Beautifully flowing like a ride on a carousel, the engaging "Only You Know" and a great New York song, appropiate theme coming from Dion, is the gorgeous and engrossing "New York City Song". A masterful "In And Out Of The Shadows" is another soulful Dion anthem that is really a knock-out, necessitating use of repeat mode numerous times, as is the infectious and ususual "Good Lovin' Man", a rocking rhythmic cooker. Fascinating 50's sounding jam "Baby Let's Stick Together" has a great beat & hand clapping chorus with background vocals all brilliantly mixed together to great effect making this a grand finale for a true masterpiece! "Born To Be With You" is such a brilliant and epic work being a hard one to follow but "Streetheart" (takes a few spins, but once it grabs you...) works nicely & is a classic pop-soul set versus epic masterpiece. A super-fine version of Smokey Robinson's "The Way You Do The Things You Do" open this terrific set with Dion loose and in top form...another strong performance makes "Runaway Man" engrossing while "Queen Of '59" is classic Dion in a great setting. Longing and yearning make "If I Can Just Get Through The Night" another stellar performance and it is amazing that radio didn't pick up on this as it has the sound of a mega-hit. "More To You (Than Meets The Eye)" a gorgeous romantic pop song and things quickly heat up and go into high gear with rhythm rocker "You Showed Me What Love Is" where Dion lets loose and gives another amazing performance that should have been another huge hit and a Grammy Award would have been justified. Haunting vocal featured in the soulful "Hey My Love", Dion is powerful doing this glorious ballad and another should have been a hit with any airplay at all bringing Dion to the top of the charts in the 70's where he belonged...should have happened with the quality of this incredible two-album double delight set that plays well over and over... Another engaging Dion original "Oh The Night" is a romantic cooker and musicans throughout this great work are totally inspired including greats such as Ernie Watts, Nino Tempo on a mean sax, Phil Everly on harmony and background vocals! "I'll Give You All I've Got" is truly great and Dion does exactly that giving his all throughtout this great mix of songs and amazing this was not a blockbuster album during the boring Disco period of the 70's...pathetic trade-off and a complete rip-off to Dion and the American public who really lost out missing this double masterpiece...hot rocking "Lover Boy Supreme" is another wondrous Dion original and clearly this is a master at his peak in every way and with airplay this would have gone to #1 in a flash! Closing is classic Dion giving his best on the title "Streetheart" another total winner in a totally winning collection...loose and soulful scatting in this great song is unlike anything I have ever heard from this great singer who is one of my all time favorites! Bravo Dion, you are awesome...everyone DON'T MISS THIS AMAZING MUSICAL TREAT!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Darkness and Light, April 16, 2001

By 

Joey D (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Born To Be With You / Streetheart (Audio CD)

These two albums were recorded close together in the mid seventies, so its only fitting that they should be paired on a twofer. When it was announced that the great Phil Spector would make a whole album with the one and only Dion, expectations were high, despite the fact that both men were past their glory days. Perhaps the pairing would jump start the magic they both possessed inthe past. Well, the album was considered such a dismal failure it was only released in England, so this is it's American debut. And Dion has stated that this recording was one of his most unhappy experiences in the recording studio. At the time , it didn't matter, I was a huge fan of both, and tracked down an import copy. Right off the bat, when the title track kicks in,or rather it doesn't, you say to yourself "Oh it's going to be like this." I don't think anybody but Ray Charles could slow down a tune to a dirge-like tempo and get away with it. But it's not just that. "Born to Be With You", all 7 minutes of it, is a pretty good song, and Nino Tempo's sax work is the best part of it, but Spector has sucked out any joy that's inherit in the song (this is an affirmation-of-love song). The sound and mix are so dense, so muddy that Dion is barely there, like the Big D has this gigantic shadow hovering over him that keeps treatening to swallow him right out of the record. The following songs get pretty much the same treatment. "Only You Know" & "Make The Woman Love Me" are good numbers given the same dirge-like treatment,with Dion managing to pump in some tenderness thus raising each song's stature in the process. However, there is "New York City Song". Taken by itself, this is one of the best tunes to come from Dion's own hand. He sings with total involvement and genuine world weariness. It is also one of the two songs NOT produced by Spector. "In & Out Of the Shadows" is a magnificent failure, with Spector pushing Dion to sing way beyond his considerable vocal range. You'll want to play it again, immediately, to hear what you've just heard. This production is haunting, but it's drawbacks ultmately serve as a metaphor for the whole project. The final number,"Good Lovin" Man" is what "The Wanderer" would have sounded like if Spector had produced it. A pretty good record, and I'll bet it was the first number they recorded, or the last. Spector treats Dion like he did most of his other artists, save the Beatles he worked with, as just another instrument in his wall of sound, but on all his great records, he always gave the artist a spotlight of his or her own to shine in. Here, he cloaks Dion in darkness, with a capital D. Dion, God bless him, bounced back artistically with STREETHEART, which he co-wrote and co-produced. If the Spector production was too heavy, STREETHEART goes a little overboard on the opposite end by making the production too light, too L.A. in the daytime if you get my drift. After working with Spector, can you blame him? The songs however are way better than the production would have you believe. But the songs are sequenced badly, really badly. (The original cassette version flipped sides one and two, for the better, so someone must have been aware this album didn't hang right). "You Showed Me What Love Is" finds Dion at his most exhuberant. It's the unknown gem in Dion's catalogue. "More to You (Than Meets Te Eye)" is one his most romantic tunes, and you'll find yourself slow dancing with your lady before the second chorus. "IF I Can Just Get Through The Night" is Dion battling with his demons with love as his only possible salvation. His vocalizing on the Temptations' "The Way You Do The Things You Do" is easy and playful, but should have never kicked off this album of, otherwise, orginal material . The dramatic "Hey,My Love" and "Lover Boy Supreme" round off the best cuts. But the gem is the 6 minute title track, and just dig the way Dion scats out his vocal at the end, giving way to the saxman's romantic solo. Just beautful......A very interesting pairing of two albums by one of music's finest artists. Darkness and Light.