Customer Reviews

Have a Nice Day 11

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

 

 

The songs featured here range from No. 1 smashes ("The Morning After") to an entry that neglected to even crack the Top 40 ("The Free Electric Band"); from country ("Funny Face") to novelty ("Uneasy Rider"); from pop with attitude ("Big City Miss Ruth Ann") to death-pop ("Daisy A Day"). The Hot 100 was sure a mixed bag in 1973, and this edition conveys the essence of that almost perfectly. The finale could have been better - nothing terribly wrong with "Tell Her She's Lovely," except for the fact that chances are, if you grew up on the East Coast this will be the first time you have ever heard it. Would have been six stars if Keith Hampshire's "Big Time Operator" had closed out this disc instead!

Super Hits of the '70s: Have a Nice Day, Vol. 11 gives us twelve more songs in this fairly good series of hits of the 1970s. The sound quality is rather good and there is a good variety of songs.

Clint Holmes starts the CD off strong with his adorable "Playground In My Mind." Clint sings beautifully of how he wants children to enjoy a good life as kids. The musical arrangement uses the percussion very nicely, too. "The Morning After" by Maureen McGovern is easily another highlight of this album; Maureen sings passionately of how she wants to save a love affair from going awry. I always liked this classic ballad by Maureen McGovern and I think that you will like it, too.

"Funny Face" by Donna Fargo isn't the strongest number on the album although it is very sweet. Unfortunately, I think it's a little bit syrupy. This country flavored ballad gets the royal treatment from Donna Fargo and her excellent diction helps her performance.

"Also Sprach Zarathustra (Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey)" by Deodato still sounds as good as it ever did; and I love that funky beat! In addition, listen for "Get Down" by Gilbert O'Sullivan; Gilbert sings with panache and I always considered him to be one of the best male vocalists of the 1970s. Wow, how he can sing! The song rocks and Gilbert handles the tempo and key changes like a pro!

"Uneasy Rider" by The Charlie Daniels Band is most definitely a country ballad that they perform very, very well. The album ends nicely with El Chicano singing out their awesome tune "Tell Her She's Lovely." El Chicano delivers this number with a lot of heart and soul.

Of course, here comes my traditional gripe against Rhino as to how they put out this series of CDs. Rhino should have added at least one more song--and why not two songs at that? Every CD in this series has a uniform twelve songs--and that does disappoint me. I will take off one start for this to make this a four star review.

Overall, Super Hits of the `70s: Have a Nice Day, Vol. 11 is a solid album with some pretty awesome music on it. I recommend this CD for people who remember these fine tunes from these artists back in the 1970s; and people who want to get to know more about `70s music may want to start with this album.

As of this writing the price of the CD is extremely expensive and overpriced so I hope that more people start to sell it. That way I hope the price will come down.

Unfortunately, I must disagree with previous reviewers of this disc. Volume 11 of the "Have a Nice Day" series is terribly inconsistent. When four of twelve cuts are marginal at best, you have a bit of a quality problem.

Volume 11 is a study in contrasts. There are two instrumental tracks; the superb "Dueling Banjos" and the overlong, overplayed Deodato version of "Also Sprach Zarathustra." Gilbert O'Sullivan and Clint Holmes add a light touch with "Get Down" and "Playground in My Mind", and Maureen McGovern's beautiful "Morning After" provides a bigband-ish angst ballad.

There is a strong country-influence in Donna Fargo's silly but successful "Funny Face" and the much better Charlie Daniel's Band debut offering, "Uneasy Rider."

There is some very good music on this disc, but many of the tracks seem very out of place on a collection whose primary title is "SuperHits of the 70s."

Like so many other compilations on the market, Volume 11 is a take it or leave it proposition based solely on the purchaser's individual taste.

Yeah, I know this "Have a Nice Day" CD is long out of print. But, it's nothing worth having if you still don't have it. Most of the tracks are crap, and two of the best tracks are cut really short. I can't believe there are people here trying to sell it "used" at a minimum of just above sixty dollars. And some people here think they can sell it for nearly two hundred dollars! That's ridiculous! This CD isn't worth the nine bucks that I paid for it back when it was brand new. Well, anyway...

I remember having the single of "Playground in My Mind" by Clint Holmes. Gee Whiz, was I retarded back then? But, here it is, and I'm glad it's on a volume that gathers up other less-than-wonderful selections. This volume is a let down. It's my fourth worst "Have a Nice Day" CD. The other let downs are that high hissing shortened version of "Dueling Banjos" by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell. I found the full version on a Time-Life CD which is the longer version plus a very clean stereo recording. Rhino dropped the ball on this one. Moving on, I use to have this 45 version of "Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)" by Deodato. After buying my very first whole album of Alice Cooper's "School's Out", I bought Deodato's album "Prelude" which had the full 9 minute version of this jazz-oriented classical track. I've never been able to tolerate the 45 version ever since.

None of these other tracks are terribly great. "Big City Miss Ruth Ann" by Gallery, "Daisy a Day" by Jud Strunk (what kind of name is that?), and "Tell Her She's Lovely" by El Chicano. I could do without all these.

"My Maria" by B. W. Stevenson is still a popular playing one hit wonder, and though it charted pretty low, I really do like Albert Hammond's "The Free Electric Band." This track is a great example of how Rhino can surprise us sometimes. So, all and all, this disc is still a keeper to me, not only because I need to keep all the volumes because I'm a compulsive completist, but because it has "The Morning After" by Maureen McGovern. I don't know why this song is important to me, but it is. And "Funny Face" is easily forgettable. I think Donna Fargo's voice was a little strange. She definitely had a backwoods country kind of voice.

The best song of all on this volume is "Uneasy Rider" by The Charlie Daniels Band. I love this song as I do with many of Charlie Daniels songs. His greatest hits album "A Decade of Hits" is one of my favorite greatest hits collections.

So, as you can see, Volume 11 is pretty weak to me compared to the fabulous selections on volumes ten and twelve. I'm glad this crappy stuff stayed together on this one CD instead of tainting the appeal of the other volumes.

This CD represents the 70's well with an amazing variety of songs. That's what the 70's were all about folks. A melting pot of all types of musical genres that allowed top 40 radio to be anything but stale. If you don't love this CD, you are not a true fan of 70's music. As an alternative, go listen to today's radio and hear the playlist repeated endlessly of songs that sound like one another.

This is a fun compilation of seventies music, as are all the volumes in this series. They could use a few more songs, but who knows, sometimes less is more. This brings me to the insanely high used prices being asked for this. I know it is out of print but It is not worth paying more then list price for this. I bought mine in a record store on 03/12/09 for just under $12.00 including tax.

I was looking for Big City Miss Ruth Ann, I don't hear this song since 1974. Playground in my Mind is also a hard to find piece, both are simple and light songs. OK, but $65.69 , no, no, no way.

As Rhino has done throughout its Have A Nice Day series, this is an interesting look at the Seventies as presented by artists of the era whose fame was short-lived. The compilers at Rhino assume you already have Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Chicago and Paul McCartney in your music library. So they have filled in the gaps with a collection of mostly one-and two-hit wonders. [Only Gilbert O'Sullivan and Charlie Daniels reached the Top 10 more than once!]

Not that there aren't plenty of big hits here. Five of these songs were million-sellers: The lightweight pop smash "Playground in My Mind," the POSEIDON ADVENTURE theme "Morning After," the country-crossover "Funny Face," the usually maudlin Gilbert O'Sullivan gets funky with "Get Down" and the banjo-guitar duet from DELIVERANCE "Dueling Banjos."

For me, the treats of volume 11 are the topical humor of Charlie Daniels' hilarious "Uneasy Rider" and the melancholy of Jud Strunk's "Daisy a Day. [Strunk is probably best remembered as a former cast member of "Laugh-In."]

Several of these tracks, however, weaken the overall impact of the collection. "Big City Miss Ruth Ann" was Gallery's last gasp in the Top 40 before becoming candidates for "Where are they now?" trivia. El Chicano's "Tell Her She's Lovely" spent one week at No. 40 before dropping off the chart entirely. Still, that was a better chart performance than Albert Hammond's "Free Electric Band." Songs like these didn't enter the American musical conscience thirty years ago, why bring them back now? It would have made more sense to include such 1973 hits as Sweet's "Little Willy," Billy Preston's "Space Race," or Loggins & Messina's "Your Mama Don't Dance."

Overall, there's enough big hits here to make the set interesting, but enough duds to keep this from being truly essential.

Once again, Rhino gathers together a batch of mostly one and two-hit wonders from the "Me Decade" but unfortunately most of these aren't ones that really are all that missed.

HIGHLIGHTS:
Banjo mainstay "Dueling Banjos" is a welcome track as is Gilbert O'Sullivan's oddity "Get Down". Having grown up mostly at the END of the 70s, I'd been much more familiar with his somewhat maudlin "Alone Again, Naturally" and fluffy "Clare" and this was new to me. (Despite its Top 10 status in 1973, it doesn't really get any oldies radio airplay at this point.) Charlie Daniel's classic hippie vs. the establishment "Uneasy Rider" sticks out like a sore thumb but it's a great track. Albert Hammond's "Free Electric Band" wasn't really a hit and is definitely dated with its "tune in turn on drop out" lyrics but it's a nice microcosm of hippie values and much catchier than the overhyped "Signs" (Five Man Electrical Band) is.

LOWS:
It won an Oscar and hit #1 but I can't imagine there are that many people pining to hear "The Morning After" again. Deodato's rework of the 2001 Space Odyssey theme is wonderfully funky but it overstays its welcome. There's still a minute to go on "Also Sprach Zarathrusta" when I get bored with it. El Chicano's "Tell Her She's Lovely" sounds like a Santana B side..nice Latin groove but the lyric's too weak to make you come back.

BOTTOM LINE:
Definitely borrow this one from a friend or a library before purchase. You'll likely only want it if you want one of the more obscure tracks here and can only find it on this one, but you may want to consider ITunes or a similar service first to get the track you're after. Skip it.

All original versions of some big hits make this a fantastic entry in the "Have a Nice Day" series by Rhino Records. Only one curiosity, "Tell Her She's Lovely," by El Chicano, is out of place.