Customer Reviews

I Had the Craziest Dream

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Helen Forrest was the greatest of the female big-band singers and, in my opinion, the equal of Frank Sinatra, the best of the male big-band singers. For anyone who wants to learn what she was all about, this is the place to start. Existing fans already familiar with her big-band work will want this collection as well, if only for the post-World War II duets with Dick Haymes.

This intelligently-produced single-disc collection brings together not only her best work with Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and Harry James, both also the best of the Haymes duets. The 25 tracks offer about as much music as you can fit on a CD. The engineers have done a good job of restoring the recordings. In some cases they sound even better than reissues from BMG and Sony, who own the masters.

The disc includes seven recordings each with Artie Shaw, Harry James, and Dick Haymes, three with Benny Goodman, and one postwar solo recording. This makes a lot of sense because Helen Forrest came to prominence and matured as a singer with Artie Shaw and did her best-known work with Harry James. The stint with Benny Goodman, who hired her after Shaw disbanded his orchestra in 1939, was a very unhappy one for Helen and Goodman did not handle her properly. The postwar duets with Dick Haymes are nothing short of wonderful and show that she was a fully mature, intelligent singer who could make just about anything sound good.

Frankly, I will never understand why Helen Forrest did not go on to a successful career after World War II, as did Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, and Doris Day, for example. With the exception of Ella Fitzgerald, who had "gone solo" early in the 1940s and was not a part of the big-band era for very long, Helen Forrest was not only the equal of any of the big-band singers who went on to successful careers but, in fact, was better than most of them.

Surely one of the greatest female vocalists of the 30's and 40's, Helen Forrest's voice shines in this fantastic collection. A gifted vocalist with a liquid and ethereal voice,Forrest began her career on radio singing under various names when Artie Shaw hired her to sing with his band in early 1938. Forrest then briefly sang for Benny Goodman (a personally unhappy experience) and afterwards joined Harry James in 1941 where her voice was complimented by James' schmaltzy trumpet and fine arrangements. After singing for James, Helen went solo; she died in 1999. Listen to "Manhattan Serenade" (with James) "Time Waits for No One" and terrific duets with Dick Haymes including "It Had to Be You" "Together" and "I'll Buy That Dream".

It's hard for a lover of Miss Forrest to find fault with anything she did. This album is no exception. Her voice is scintillating as always. The sound quality is excellently reproduced--remember these songs are primarily from 78's. And the price is right. Is there anthing negative to say? One always wishes for more: if only the CD contained more selections! Helen was the best of her era. Everybody knew it then. And many of know that she is "for the ages." This album helps us understand why. (This reviewer invites people who love her to write him at pjones.@mail.nwmissouri.edu Let's keep her alive in our hearts.)

Helen Forrest was in my opinion the greatest female singer of the Swing Era, and anyone wanting to test that claim need look no further than this compilation. It features her with three of the best bands of the time, namely Artie Shaw (1938/39), Benny Goodman (1940), and Harry James (1941/42), and in duet with Dick Haymes (1944/45). All of these songs were chart hits, and deservedly so. Much has been made of her recordings with Goodman, but Artie Shaw had the richer tone, and it blended perfectly with Helen's approach to the lyrics. Every track is a delight, remastering is first-rate, and there's an informative liner note and track details to complement the package.