Customer Reviews

Born To Be With You / Streetheart

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

 

 

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!!!!!

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!

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.

your life will not be complete until you hear dion sing "make the woman love me". it is a great lyric,interpreted by one of the great singers, with that great big "wall of sound" behind him.
the title song is also one that grows on the listener, and i essentially enjoyed all the other phil spector production numbers with the painful exception of "he's got the whole world in his hands" - that should have been left off the album.
The 2 other songs on the album, "you're own backyard" and "New york City Song" are both first rate, and more of what you'd expect from dion. they sound like they would fit better on the "sanctuary" album than on this album because they are clean and strightforward recordings (no wall of sound).
the streetheart album is memorable for "if i could just get thru the night" . the rest of the album is nothing more than bonus tracks compared to the born to be with you collection of songs, which clearly aspire to greatness, and actually achieve that goal several times

Well, what can one say? Ronnie pierced the wall, Darlene and Tina overtook the wall, The Ramones shook the wall and well, Dion smashed straight into the wall. Poor Dion, he really didn't know what he was getting into when he was hooked up with Phil Spector in 1974-75 to record "Born To Be With You" Word is that he calls working on this album "the worst experience of his career." That may be, but the opportunity to work with Phil Spector is a challenge/experience few artists have gotten to do, and many would like to do. The songs range from brilliant (the title track, "Only You Know", "In and Out Of The Shadows") to just plain awful ("He's Got The Whole World in His Hands--and yes, it's that one you remember from Sunday School). To mediocre ("Good Lovin' Man"--check out the bass line on this track--UNBELIEVEABLE!) The album is very well produced musically, in fact I would really like to hear the tracks without vocals, as the arrangements are dense and beautiful (thanks to longtime Spector comrade Nino Tempo). No doubt about it, Phil Spector knows how to produce a record. Musically the above three tracks are INCREDIBLE and if you're a Spector or Dion fan, this CD is worth the price for just those three tracks. Stand out track: In and Out Of The Shadows. For this music, many thanks, Phil. As for Dion, good try buddy, you gave it your best shot.

One of my most favourite CDs.Dion has a beautiful singing voice as a solo artist.Most people seem to be most familiar with his material from his days with The Belmonts,but I love both albums on this CD.Each album has a different sound to it.Dion sounds a little spaced out on Born To Be With You.Streetheart has a bluesy peaceful jazz sound to it.Back when I was ten years old,I remember having a"20 original hits,20 original stars"type of album called Blazzing Bullets on eight-track tape,during the days when eight-track tapes were the norm.Dion's Make The Woman Love Me was included on the tape.Buying this CD from the internet in much more recent time,marks my first time ever hearing this song since I was ten.In And Out Of The Shadows is a perfect slow dancing song.I love this song so much,that I sometimes find myself singing along to it.The saxophone is beautifully played in the song Streetheart.

The 5 star rating is for B2BWU. Streetheart is no more than pleasant.

I first bought B2BWU back in the '70s and didn't think much of it, with the exception of Make the Woman Love Me. The wax sat on the shelf and rarely got played.

When I saw that it was being re released with Streeheart I bought it chiefly for Streetheart, which I had missed along the way. But when I slipped the CD in to the player and listened again after many years, the brilliance of the album kicked in. Maybe I just had to grow up.

Dion is an artist that always gives you something you didn't expect. While I'm not a big fan of the "Wall of Sound" Phil Specter approach, I really liked "Your own backyard". It's an honest from the soul message of what he went through with drugs. Great cut!
"Queen of 1959" is a middle aged love song to someone who is obviously the love of his life. Nice to see that those feelings are still there after all the years. It gives hope for the future of marriage.
All in all, some great tracks on this set.

i am on a serious phil spector kick lately, so, inevitably, i had to get this as i am both a fan of specter and of dion. born to be with you exceeded my expectations. if you own leonard cohen's spector-produced death of a ladies man and the arrangements on that album, you will also like this. i like all the tracks on btbwy-. only one song, i think it's track #7 kinda sounds like filler. tracks 9 & 10, the bonus tracks are also awesome. now streetheart or, "street-fart" as i call it, has thin, dated, production and sound and comes off only more inferior when paired with born to be with you, a masterpiece. the malodorous, flatulent, stench of "street-fart" weighs the package down, hence the four star rating. but do not let street-fart deter you from getting this if you're into dion and like phil spector's works from the seventies: lennon's imagine, beetles' let it be, and the spector-produced leonard cohen album called death of a ladies man. born to be with you will blow your mind

As my previous reviews show, I'm a Dion fan. Not this pair of albums though. I was unfamilliar with them and soon will be again.