Customer Reviews

Capitol Collectors Series

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

 

 

Sonny's mellow style of pop-country music did not impress everybody but he was hugely successful in his heyday, sometimes with covers of pop songs, although he also had some great original material. This was the first collection of his music released on CD and was intended to be the first of two volumes. Capitol eventually abandoned their Collectors series so the second volume was never released. This fate also befell Merle Haggard, but while Merle has been reasonably well served by CD releases, Sonny has not. There have been several compilations but they have all been single CD's. Trying to collect all Sonny's big country hits therefore remains a challenge.

This collection is presented in chronological order, beginning with Young love, the song he is best known for despite having to compete head-on with Tab Hunter's version of the same song.

Brits will be familiar with The minute you're gone, which Cliff Richard covered and took all the way to the top of the UK charts. Sonny's version is the original, but he took several pop classics to (or close to) the top of the country charts including (on this collection) I'll never find another you (Seekers), Only the lonely (Roy Orbison), It's just a matter of time (Brook Benton), My love (Petula Clark) and Only love can break a heart (Gene Pitney).

Of the original songs, Baltimore (written by Boudleaux and Felice Bryant), You're the only world I know and True love's a blessing (both co-written by Sonny James) are particularly noteworthy.

Most of these tracks have been re-issued on more recent Sonny James collections but we still await the definitive collection of his Capitol hits.

Tracks

Young love
First date first kiss first love
The minute you're gone
Baltimore
Ask Marie
You're the only world I know
True love's a blessing
Take good care of her
Room in your heart
Need you
I'll never find another you
Heaven says hello
Only the lonely
Since I met my baby
It's just a matter of time
My love
Empty arms
Bright lights big city
Only love can break your heart
That's why I love you like I do

>Well Okay, beat up on the guy for being a dreaded "Cover Artist"; and Yes, some of the material on this disc sounds painfully dated! But! ... He was good, Damn Good! Capitol had real talent on its roster in those days (Peggy Lee, Nancy Wilson, The Beach Boys, Merle Haggard, Dean Martin, Bobby Darrin, Sammy Davis, Jr., The Beatles, etc.) >Just wish "Behind The/A Tear" was on this collection.
>Unlike some of the other Capitol Collectors Series albums, there is not so much cross-talk between the Performer and the Producers/Recording Engineers. The Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, and Al Martino collections in the series contain the best examples.
The great premise of this series is/was is you got the Greatest Hits (more or less, but the best of the Out-Takes).
Another "boon" was/is when you open the 'centerfold' of the inner booklet, you are treated to a colorful collection of photos of record (LPs; 45s; 78s) covers and record labels of their past releases - a montage of those - if you will.
Which leads me to this: 'What has happened to album art?!' 'Why the campaign of insanity to elminate and obliterate it?'
It's as nuts as trying to get rid of Vinyl and CDs. Computer downloads can't measure up in sound quality and album art - PERIOD!
Capitol should resurrect this series, and they most certainly should issue 'Sonny James The Capitol Collectors Series Vol. II' -
AS THEY MORE OR LESS PROMISED BACK IN 1990!

--Tony Rizzo
West Palm Beach, FL. 12-22-2010.

Well, the three stars is for the relative skimpiness of the package, but it ain't Bear Family. My first Sonny James album was a 35-cent find, his 10 track BIGGEST HITS Capitol ST 11013, a thrift store find (I still have it). I'd been listening to his songs on KVLV radio out of Sparks, Nevada, for several of my teenage years and just really grooved to his C&W blues songs, especially that Jimmy Reed tune. The song that really hooked me was his guitar work (TV performance) of "Free Roamin' Mind," an Lp track on IT'S JUST A MATTER OF TIME, Capitol ST 432 (track one, side two). Just blew me away. Love the guitar work, as well as that of Hank Snow, Roy Clark, Joe Maphis, Merle Travis. So I ran down his albums. Yes, he did quite frankly G-rated covers for his hits, and his Lp tracks tend to run to fillers. But that guitar work, man! I have several of the CAPITOL COLLECTORS SERIES CDs, all of which have great liner notes, A&R matrix information, and recording dates. A nice overview of his cover hits, for the most part, but a little light.

P.S. -- if you're buying his Capitol albums, avoid the last 3-4 of them, starting with TRACES. The music is good, but by that time he'd jumped to Columbia and Capitol was reshuffling his Capitol Lp filler tracks to compile "new" albums, as labels did to milk the last dime out of an artist who jumped ship, just generally monkeywrench a rival's career, and there's nothing new there.

THE LOCAL MUSIC STORES WERE OF NO HELP IN FINDING THIS ITEM. THEIR ONLY HOPE TO ME WAS "CAN SEE. BUT IT WILL PROBABLY TAKE 6-8 WEEKS". THE SPECIAL BITHDAYS WAS ONLY 3 WEEKS AWAY. AMAZON IS AND WAS THE GREATEST. I GOT IT IN LESS THAT A WEEK AND IN PERFECT CONDITION. IT HAS BEEN ENJOYED BY THE BIRTHDAY BOY MANY TIMES OVER.

Nobody in music history has so shamelessly taken other people's hits and recorded them for another group of music fans, in this case country bumpkins impressed by a "southern gentleman". Why? He KNEW they were bumpkins with their minus-IQ ears glued to country music radio. He KNEW he would be credited with the delivery of the songs to those ears; it worked. The single-gaited country listeners who had never heard of The Seekers, Ivory Joe Hunter, Brook Benton, etc ate it right up and put the man into the Country Music Hall of Fame. When will there be a definitive collection of his Muzak versions of hits? Who cares?