Customer Reviews

God Bless America (Digitally Remastered)

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

 

 

CD 1
When The Moon Comes Over The Mountain
Shine On Harvest Moon
Some Sunday Morning
Say It Over And Over Again
Embraceable You
Beautiful Dreamer
The Last Time I Saw Paris
Stay As Sweet As You Are
Makin' Faces At The Moon
Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone
A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square
Who Cares? (As Long As You Care For Me)
Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
Easter Parade
I'm Stepping Out With A Memory Tonight
The Continental
Time On My Hands
Snuggled On Your Shoulder
Rose O' Day (The Filla-Ga-Dusha Song)
You Call It Madness
I Got Rhythm
When My Ship Comes In
I Cried For You
Now Is The Hour
We'll Meet Again

CD 2
(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover
I Don't Want To Walk Without You
Be Careful It's My Heart
If I Have To Go On Without You
How Do I Know It's Real?
Love, You Funny Thing
I Only Have Eyes For You
Tears On My Pillow
Somebody Loves Me
I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)
Just A Prayer Away
Ridin' High
Along The Santa Fe Trail
Sioux City Sue
There's A Gold Mine In The Sky
Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (That's An Irish Lullaby)
Mother Machree
When You Wish Upon A Star
You'll Never Know Sweetheart
It Had To Be You
If I Had My Life To Live Over
Dancing With Tears In My Eyes
It's Never Too Late (To Say You're Sorry)
Somebody Else Is Taking My Place
Anniversary Song

CD 3
Seems Like Old Times
There Goes That Song Again
Imagination
Time Was
Bless This House
The Woodpecker Song (based on Reginalla Campagnola)
One Dozen Roses
Blues In The Night
My Melancholy Baby
River, Stay `Way From My Door
Don't Fence Me In
When The Roses Bloom Again
Ask Anyone Who Knows
Two Dreams Met
And There You Are
I Threw A Kiss In The Ocean
Memory Lane
The Miracle Of The Bells
When I Lost You
Don't Worry `Bout Me
It All Comes Back To Me Now
Maybe It's Love
You Didn't Have To Tell Me (I Knew It All The Time)
Too Late
God Bless America

Kate Smith was a true landmark in American music. No one sang like she did. She recorded for decades - without her voice failing (like so many other singers). And yet, she has been so grossly misrepresented on CD's. Her greatest body of work (in my opinion) is the work she did for RCA (several albums in the 1960's), when her voice was rich beyond belief - and orchestrations lush, contemporary, well recorded. BUT... where are these albums on CD? A few have surfaced, but only a few - and what HAS surfaced has NOT been re-mastered. In fact, much of what has resurfaced on CD is WORSE sounding than the original albums. The lady deserves much better than this. She gave us a lifetime of all-out singing. It's a shame.

This new CD is both a "must-have" and a "disappointment."

A "must-have" because there is simply not much out there for Kate - and this 3 CD set has many songs that have not appeared on other CD compilations.

A "disappointment" for many reasons... No liner notes. No photos. The track listing on Amazon (and practically EVERY website & music store!) is TOTALLY incorrect. The ONLY song in the Amazon.com listing that Kate sings on this set is "God Bless America". She sings NONE of the other songs.

The CD is also disappointing because NONE of the songs were re-mastered. The audio level varies from song to song. Some songs sound pretty good, with her voice WAY up front... while the next song will be so low, you can't understand what she's singing/saying. Many of the songs sounded better/clearer on the albums. By the way, most of these songs were 78 rpms. Only a few appeared on albums - nothing more recent than 1954 (Kate's Capitol Records album).

I was going to give a complete listing of songs, but hey - there are 75 songs on this CD. Way too many to list. There are some VERY early Kate Smith songs on this (Shine On Harvest Moon, for instance), and up to Who Cares (which I'm pretty sure is the version off her Capital Records album, 1954).

I will say, though, it was a joy to hear Seems Like Old Times, Bless This House, Some Sunday Morning, Beautiful Dreamer, etc. Her voice is strong, secure (as always) - but definitely more dated sounding than the volume of work she did for RCA.

Do I recommend this CD? Yeah. It's Kate, after all - and 75 songs for this price is a real bargain. Just don't expect good sound. (I'm actually thinking about running this through my home computer to adjust volumes, clean up the muddy sound on a lot of it, and burn a copy for my own use.) It's at least SOMETHING - until RCA gets off their ... and puts out a Kate Smith collection worthy of the woman.

Instrumentals were good and clear However on the first track which was the only one with Ms. Smith singing (God Bless America) her voice was much deeper than it should have been. It sounded like the recording was not in speed or was dragging. I'm very disappointed with this purchase. Hopefully this was only my C.D..

These are the correct track listings for:

Kate Smith
"God bless America"
The Original Recordings

PRO-ARTE Digital (Record Label)
CDD 518 (Release Number)
1990 (Year of Release, mine was 1990 anyway, amazon lists 1993)

1) When The Moon Comes Over The Mountain
2) Tell Me With A Love Song
3) Waiting At The End Of The Road
4) Moanin' Low
5) I Don't Mind Walking In the Rain
6) Maybe It's Love
7) I Got Rhythm
8) Held By The Spell Of The Moon
9) Kate Smith Presents A Memory Program: Old Folks At Home;
Grandfathers Clock; Songs My Mother Taught Me; Seeing Nellie Home
10) You Try Somebody Else
11) All Of Me
12) River, Stay 'Way From My Door'
13) To Late
14) I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)
15) Twenty Million People
16) When My Ship Comes In
17) When The Moon Comes Over The Mountain ("A Collins Special")
18) God Bless America

I just got this disc. The Sound Quality is good. The Tracks are mostly earlier recordings, but range from the year 1929 to 1939.

I ordered intending to get the 3 disc release, but because of no track listings on the Amazon page for this disc, and reviews that belong to other recordings on this discs page, got this disc instead.

Hope this will help differentiate this release, from the many other "God Bless America" releases. I Will post a few customer images of the CD on the product page.

I have a one CD album called KATE SHITH & FRIENDS - GOD BLESS AMERICA. The only song sung by Kate is God Bless America. Her friends are a choir [unnamed, but good] that sing America the Beautiful. All other songs are instrumentals by an unnamed, and not very good, band. To call this a Kate Smith album is fraudulent.

Very disappointed with this product. There were only two songs by Miss Smith and the rest was "marching" band music. "God Bless America" did not sound like anybody I had ever heard before. Digitally Remastered - bah!!!

Disappointing because I wanted a Kate Smith audio and the audio portion of this is very small. It is mainly an instrumental. It does have its title song, but that's not enough.

75 performances from America's World War II "Songbird of the South" on this 3-CD set; the sound is excellent! I've got several collections of Miss Smith and this is by far the absolute best in terms of rare gems: Time on My Hands; Dancing with Tears in My Eyes; I'm Stepping Out; When You Wish Upon a Star; and countless others. Enjoy!

I bought the CD only for one song: God Bless America, thinking that all of the stanzas would be on it. All that was on this cut was the chorus. What a disappointment.

This is the worst gift I gave at Christmas to my 85 year old father! The voice is horrible as is the music. He was so disappointed.