Customer Reviews

Greatest Hits

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

 

 

As I was involved in putting the Pat Boone album on this page together (interviewing Pat for the liner notes), I should reiterate that these are the original Dot label recordings, which MCA now owns; that the reviews saying they are not refer to the Curb Record collection, which also has fewer tracks. How this got messed up, I don't know, but the MCA collection (and Volume 2, on Varese Sarabande) are the originals, both compiled with Pat's approval.

Want to clarify an earlier review....The bogus recordings appear on the CURB label's version of "Greatest Hits". The MCA label's "Greatest Hits" are authentic and original DOT Records recordings! Review for the CURB lable Cd was erroneously placed under the MCA Cd.....are you confused yet??

Along with Rick Nelson, Pat Boone was an artist in the 50's who helped make what had been called "race" music popular to non-black audiences-- outselling the originals while no doubt leading many to seek out what the originals really sounded like. (The Beatles' early recordings had the same effect on me, introducing me to earlier artists I might not have found otherwise.) For someone like me, who doesn't rank Boone as highly as dozens or even hundereds of other artists (call it personal taste) this is an EXCELLENT collection that features his early R&B covers, and a nice selection of his later "shmaltzy" stuff. Sure, I don't play it much-- but I can't argue with the quality & beauty of the stuff here!

However, my favorite song here is the one Pat says his manager urged him NOT to record, as by then he'd put rock & roll behind him: "Speedy Gonzales"! I find it hard to believe the story that Pat's manager somehow invited his friend Mel Blanc to contribute to the recording without realizing Blanc was ALREADY the voice of the cartoon mouse! (Talk about too silly for words.) That it became Pat's BIGGEST-selling single only proves to me that Boone, if anything, had better instincts that his manager. GO, PAT! I only wish they'd have included the MONO 45 mix, as it has more "punch" than the stereo version here. This is a common problem with repackages; if they're giving us the "hits", they should make sure it's really the "hit" versions! The same thing plagued The Monkees' "Pleasant Valley Sunday" for over 2 decades' worth of reissues...

Pat Boone's misfortune was that he came along too late in the game...Boone is essentially a crooner,even if I am stretching the definition of that word a bit..He came along at a time when popular music was undergoing a very radical change(a change that has not been for the better,as rap and heavy metal ,two forms of musical self-abuse,have shown)..His voice is pleasant(whereas most of today's"stars" have ruff,untrained,untalented voices,better suited to singing in the shower-or not singing at all-than singing for a living),and most of his songs are sentimental rather than artsy-fartsy,mind-numbingly personal,or just plain rubbish(as are most of the stuff we are subjected to today)...and Boone suffers because some of his cover versions are sweetly done,while the originals,often by "artists"with less talent than Boone,sound raw which,unfortunately,has been the standard since the late 1950s...For those who hate talent,sentiment,quality,romance,and other pre-Elvis musical attributes,Pat Boone's music is anathema..Most listeners who hate Boone's work have very little tolerance for anything other than the gutter trash that is today's'popular"music..But for those who appreciate QUALITY,Pat Boone remains a hero,and this album contains a lot of his very best sides.

This is a classic collection, and an essential page of Rock n' roll.
Pat Boone was "one of the first young singers to help bridge the gap
between traditional pop music and rock n' roll".
With his clean cut image, white bucks, and a singing style inspired by Bing Crosby,
he was a favorite of teenagers, and parents alike.
Topping the charts nearly a year before Elvis,
he stayed a regular there over the next four years.

This c.d. contains sixteen major hits starting with his first hit in 1955 to 1958,
plus two top ten hits "Moody river" 1961, and "Speedy Gonzales 1962.

One of my all time favorites and a 1956 #1 hit is here also,
"I almost lost my mind", who didn't "SWOON WITH BOONE" on that one?

Here are 14 top ten hits, and 4 top 20 hits, in this 1993 collection.
This c.d. is the first comprehensive compilation of original hit versions
of Boone's early Dot Records released in the U.S.A.
The fourteen page liner notes contain an overveiw of Boone's career,
several pictures, and the track listing includes the chart position.
This compilation is by M.C.A. in 1993. The sound quality is excellent.

Footnote: The perfect c.d. to continue the original recording hits,
that picks up in 1958 where this c.d. leaves off is,
"More Greatest Hits" on "Varese Sarabande", a Compilation by M.C.A. label in 1994.
It contains 18 original recordings, 17 charted and one b-side, "Theres a moon out tonight".
Included there is "Big cold wind" #19 in 1961, a rather difficult song to find.
There are NO repeats.

Those two C.D.s give you 35 of Boone's 60 charted songs.
And they make for wonderfull listening pleasure!

Footnote: Most of the songs that are NOT included between those two c.d.'s didn't chart well.
Only 8 of the 25 made the top forty.
For the diehard Boone fan that may want to hunt for them, those 8 are;
1. "At my front door (crazy little mama)", 1955.
2. "No other arms (no arms can ever hold you)", 1955.
3. "Gee whittakers!", 1955.
4. "Tutti Frutti", 1956.
5. "Long tall Sally", 1956.
6. "Anastasia", 1956.
7. "I'm waiting just for you", 1957.
8. "That's how much I love you", 1958.

This album contains a wide selection of Pat's greatest hits. I have listened to several samples and the recordings are not the original hits as released for the hit charts, nevertheless they are excellent renditions by a singer with a superb voice.

Any mature long term fan of Pat's would know that his truly great hits include songs that did not make the top forty or any other radio or press listing. So my rating of the album is not based on the quality or merit of the recordings but rather what an old and frequent listening fan considers Pat's greatest hits to be.

Certainly the album is highlighted by Pat's classics, tracks 4 through 13 and also 15. If you added super hits like Stardust, Ebb Tide, Anniversary Song, St Louis Blues and such like the album would most certainly rate 5 star+.

I acknowledge tracks such as 17,18, 1 and 2 as part of the pop scene of the fifties but I do not consider them to be performances which endear you to the qualities of a superb balladeer. Pat is one of the last of a line of crooners which stunned the music world with an original sound but he like others had to be careful in their selection of songs. Sinatra and Crosby recorded a much narrower pop range of songs (excluding Crosby's early jazz recordings)but Pat Boone was caught in the explosion of rock music in the mid fifties. He almost had to record songs of rock & roll sound and rhythm. This was a pity because they did not suit his voice and style of presentation - he was a crooner with a huge and true vocal range suitable for classical love songs in the 'Stardust' tradition.

Any fan of this artist will greatly appreciate the excellent material contained in this album. For a new listener, try to discount the songs which do not suit the smooth, silky sounds of the real Pat Boone, listen to the high quality love songs of that time, April Love, Remember You're Mine, Chains of Love, Sugar Moon, these are marvellous, sensual vocal presentations of romantic interludes from one of the very best vocalists of our time.

Pat Boone was the good boy rock and roller from the 50s and early 60's and this has most of his best work and few other songs on it. Sounds great and will satisfy his fans if they want to hear his hits as they were first done.

Every era has had its primary target for those who like to pass themselves off as the only ones with any knowledge of what is truly good music. Such as most who write for Rolling Stone and people like Irwin Stambler, whose overblown and pompous The Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock and Soul doesn't even mention Pat Boone (or Brenda lee and Johnny Mathis either!)

When looking back at the Rockin' Fifties, most of these supercilious idiots slough off Pat Boone as "an aberration" - someone who enjoyed considerable success only because those who bought his records, played him on the juke box, and demanded to hear his tunes on the radio, simply did not understand what constituted Rock And Roll in the early days. And to that I say baloney, because you simply cannot judge music of half a century ago by today's standards.

At that time Rock & Roll was evolving and artists like Pat and Connie Francis were every bit as adept at it as most. Not in the class of Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, LaVern Baker, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, and Fats Domino, of course, but then again organized (and often disorganized) noise from the likes of The Velvet Underground or Parliament/Funkadelic can't be compared to those giants either - and yet both are now ensconced in the same R&R Hall Of Fame. Different eras, vastly different approach.

Pat is also vilified for "daring to cover" such tunes as Ain't That A Shame and Chains Of Love. But Fats Domino once stopped in the middle of a tune at a concert, walked to the front of the stage and showed the audience a huge, glittering, diamond-studded ring in the shape of a piano and said "I owe this to Pat Boone and the royalties I received from his version of Ain't That A Shame."

For the record, Pat had 60 Billboard Pop Top/Hot 100 hits from 1955 to 1969, four of which crossed over to the R&B charts, eight to the Adult Contemporary (AC) charts following their inception in 1961 (and added two more to those charts only), as well as putting five on the Country charts. Not bad for a "slug." And in this release you get 18 of those Pop hits and three of the four R&B cross-overs (Ain't That A Shame - # 1 Top 100/# 14 R&B in the fall of 1955; Don't Forbid Me - # 1 Top 100/# 10 R&B in spring 1957; and Love Letters In The Sand - # 1 Top 100 (for SEVEN weeks)/# 12 R&B in late summer 1957).

All told he had five Pop # 1 hits and, in addition to the ones just mentioned, you also get I Almost Lost My Mind (# 1 for FOUR weeks in early summer 1958) and April Love (# 1 for SIX weeks in November/December 1957). On the vast majority of his hits he was backed by the orchestra of Billy Vaughn, musical director at Dot Records (on his first, Two Hearts - # 16 Top in spring 1955 - he was backed by Lew Douglas & His Orchestra).

With the insert you get nine pages of background notes written by Todd Everett, as well as a complete discography of the 18 tracks and a few more nice photos of Pat. The AAD sound quality is perfect.

One of the conceits my Boomer generation has built up over the years is that the advent of rock was a revolutionary rather than evolutionary change, and that it owed nothing whatever to the dinosaur garbage of previous generations. This of course was a petulant response on our part, brought on by the condemnation and hostility of the World War II generation to rock--and was in its own way just as narrowminded. Still, half a century of rock has seen a complete revisionist history come into play which has institutionalized for our children's generation (and beyond) this bald-faced lie on our part. The truth is that many of our earlier idols were very derivative of earlier artists. Like Bobby Darin and his descendency from Sinatra. James Darren and his influence by Tony Bennett. Michael Franks and his rather more clever derivation from Perry Como. Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues and his similarity to Robert Goulet. And if Pat Boone wasn't our Bing Crosby, then no one was. Just listen to that resonant baritone in songs like "Love Letters In The Sand" and see if you don't agree. It may be arguable that nothing that is bona fide rock'n'roll has any equivalent in any single sound to earlier popular music, but you have to remember that none of the above Boomer descendants of WW II artists were actually rock'n'roll singers. Especially Boone, who pretty much left rock behind during his starring role in the film "Bernadine". The philosophical differences between the fundamentalist Christian movement Boone later joined and the rock constituency have nothing to do with it--you listen to any of the above singers on both sides of the Generation Gap for how their music sounds--not for ideological indoctrination or reinforcement. At least that's what popular music used to be about anyway.