The Broadway Years, Vol. 2

Fred Waring | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 26, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 2029
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Old Masters
• ASIN: B00005K9XH
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #227,080 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Button Up Your Overcoats

2. Then You've Never Been Blue

3. Navy Blues

4. Alma Mammy

5. With You

6. Crying For The Carolines

7. I Want To Be Happy

8. Tea For Two

9. Let Me Sing And I'm Happy

10. Thank Your Father

11. Love For Sale

12. Where Have You Been?

13. Elizabeth

14. Oh Donna Clara!

15. Sing A Little Jingle

16. Dancing In The Dark

17. Let's Have Another Cup O' Coffee

18. I Say It's Spinach

19. On A Roof In Manhattan

20. How'm I Doin'?

See all 24 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No mush on this CD, either!, February 26, 2002

By 

Aaron Z. Snyder "Aaron Z Snyder" (CHESTNUT HILL, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Broadway Years, Vol. 2 (Audio CD)

One of the points I made straight off in my review of the companion CD to this one, "The Collegiate Years (Vol. 1)" is that the Fred Waring with whom many of us grew up gave us the impression that his style was lush and bland, whereas the reality of the situation is that his early style was rollicking and, most of all, fun! Oh, there are the Waring trademarks: superb musicianship and precise ensemble. This may sound like a sterile environment in which to have "fun", but don't believe that for a minute!
The other review in this space details a lot of the features on this CD, so I won't repeat them. What hasn't been said is that, as with the companion CD, the sound processing is superb. Sources are apparently released shellac disks, but the only noise you hear is a constant shellac hiss -- no clicks and pops. Equalization is about as natural as one could hope for.
The final item on this CD marks the beginning of a 9-year recording hiatus for the Pennsylvanians, due to Waring's then-ongoing battle for royalties owed him by broadcasters who would play his records without attribution. It's a real pity, because he continued to make music like this during these years. Since a lot of it was broadcast on radio, we can only hope that someone may, in the future, publish some of the transcriptions which, no doubt, exist.
An artifact of the aforementioned era has found its way occasionally into the MP3 world: Raymond Scott's parody of Waring entitled, in Scott's typical cumbersome style, "The Reaction of the Musicians to Meeting Waring's Pennsylvanians." I'm not at all familiar with the song they are singing (it was never recorded on 78s), but the humor is brilliant: Waring's trademark precise unison vocal ensemble is a total shambles in this version -- that is, every voice enters about a millisecond off from every other voice! The singing is exceptionally overwrought, and "hey nonny nonny" and "ha cha cha" are thrown into the lyrics. There are musical quotations from "Collegiate" at the beginning and end of the piece, too, just to give it that authentic feel. I hope that the next Scott compilation (soon to be released, they say) will include this piece. On first hearing it, I thought that Scott was ridiculing Waring; however, it now seems to me to be a tribute to Waring and his contribution to the world of pop music -- and a fitting one, at that!