If I Give My Heart to You / Honky Tonk Angel

Kitty Kallen | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 17, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Collectables
• ASIN: B00004YNF9
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,705 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Need Me

2. Driftwood on the River

3. Always in My Heart

4. Never in a Million Years

5. Because You're Mine

6. Got a Date With an Angel

7. If I Give My Heart to You

8. Blues in My Heart

9. That Old Feeling

10. Vaya Con Dios (May God Be with You)

11. Blue Doll

12. Love Is a Sacred Thing

13. I'll Never Stand in Your Way

14. Your Cheatin' Heart

15. Be My Life's Companion

16. It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

17. Raining in My Heart

18. A Poor Man's Roses (Or a Rich Man's Gold)

19. You Are My Sunshine

20. Careless Hands

See all 24 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent twofer CD--BRAVO, KITTY KALLEN !!!, April 9, 2008

By 

Matthew G. Sherwin (last seen screaming at Amazon customer service) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: If I Give My Heart to You / Honky Tonk Angel (Audio CD)

If I Give My Heart to You/Honky Tonk Angel is a fantastic twofer CD by the great Kitty Kallen. Unfortunately, Kitty's career wasn't as long as I wished it was! However, while she was in the show business industry she really gave it her all; and this CD proves it. We get all the tracks from two of Kitty's record albums named If I Give My Heart To You and Honky Tonk Angel. The sound quality is great and I love that artwork!

"Need Me" starts off the track set and Kitty sings this passionately with all her heart and soul. Kitty's voice sounds like silk and the strings enhance the beauty of this ballad. "Always In My Heart" features Kitty front and center--I love it! The melody is lush but make no mistake about it--Kitty is squarely in the spotlight. "Never In A Million Years" also gets the royal treatment from Kitty; and that horn solo enhances the number as Kitty aces this so effortlessly. Great!

"Got A Date With An Angel" is a cute little tune about a young woman who's got a date with the man she loves; and the backup chorus actually works to enhance the number instead of distracting your attention from Kitty. "That Old Feeling" has always been one of my very favorite classic pop tunes; and Kitty sings this so well it truly does tug at my heartstrings. Listen also for "Vaya Con Dios;" this number starts with Kitty singing in English--in fact, most of this number is in English. "Vaya Con Dios" is easily a major highlight of this album.

"I'll Never Stand In Your way" has Kitty singing her heart out and the percussion subtly helps the melody along very nicely. "Be My Life's Companion" is another cute little tune that features Kitty giving this all her might to make this number very memorable.

"You Are My Sunshine" sounds just so good when the great Kitty Kallen sings it; she makes this old ballad seem fresh and new all over again. "Someday (You'll Want Me To Want You)" also has Kitty delivering a ballad with her very special talents; and "Someday (You'll Want Me To Want You)" is a great highlight of this album. The CD ends nicely with Kitty Kallen performing "Hey, Good Lookin'." "Hey, Good Lookin'" really swings brightly and this makes such a strong ending for this CD that you'll find yourself pushing the play button on your CD player without any hesitation!

Kitty Kallen will always be a huge star in my book; she just had a certain quality of singing that I rarely hear or enjoy. Kitty Kallen fans will certainly want this fine CD; and this isn't a bad starter CD either! Enjoy!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Mixed Bag, October 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: If I Give My Heart to You / Honky Tonk Angel (Audio CD)

Although the two albums on this CD are both Columbia albums from the same period, they are vastly different. If I Give My Heart to You represents the more traditional standards in a vocal appraoch similar to Kitty Kallen's big hits like Little Things Mean a Lot and In the Chapel in the Moonlight from the mid-50's. All 12 selections on this album are in that familiar style and are quite good. The second album, Honky Tonk Angel, is Kitty's attempt to cover Country and Western songs and it is not nearly as successful. There are a few good numbers here, most notably the slow ballads, but the uptempo selections are not her best efforts. However, the If I Give My Heart to You album is so good that it outweighs the less successful Honky Tonk Angel album. Anyone who is a Kitty Kallen fan, like me, will welcome this CD, particularly as there isn't that much Kitty Kallen music out there.

4.0 out of 5 stars Well, uh, I like C&W music and..., January 26, 2012

By 

The Imperator - See all my reviews

This review is from: If I Give My Heart to You / Honky Tonk Angel (Audio CD)

Frankly, I bought this CD set for the second half, the HONKY TONK ANGEL album. Um, about this two-fer:

The IF I GIVE MY HEART TO YOU is a kind of pop-rock-lite take as a backing style, something along the lines of what Bobby Vinton was working in the early '60s. There's a lot of early '60s electronic echo added to both albums that gives the effect of hearing true stereo separation in a bathroom with a tile floor. Lots of shimmering strings, mostly a slow Santo & Johnny groove (especially "Blue Doll,"), and while listening to it, the sound was familiar, nagged at me, and then I got it: this is what Connie Francis's mother would have sounded like--the teardrop and that soft feminine pillow softness that nice women have in their voice. Kallen uses one vocal trick with remarkable consistency, letting her voice hit a note and then sliding down to give a sense of pathos to her reading. It's used to the point of being annoying. It sounds at least inspired by Mitch Miller: strumming ukelele, harpsicord, and electric organ, a beautiful music backing chorus, lots of strings and that echo.

Well, now, HONKY TONK ANGEL. The band grooves, especially on the faster songs, "You're Cheatin' Heart," "You Are My Sunshine," and "Hey, Good Lookin'". She rides along with them, and it's obvious she's got a good ride going with the band, they cook together. And the material and that AWFUL overpowering skating rink electric organ JUST DON'T WORK. A flavor: think vanilla ice cream, lots of chocolate syrup, topped with steaming sourkraut. In my humble opinion, this is the absolute worst, WORST, "country" album by a 1940s-1955 pop singer ever put together. Absolutely stinking, gloriously atrocious, a cringer, a train wreck, it does. not. work. You gotta hear this thing!