Customer Reviews

Legendary Perry Como

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If your interested in hearing some of Perry Como's takes on 1970s era hits, this package will be well received. He turns his mellow vocals on Snowbird, Close To You, We've Only Just Begun, Something, Yesterday and many others with good results. This three CD set does contains some of his big hits, It's Impossible, And I Love You So, Papa Loves Mambo, but not all and it is not meant to be a greatest hits collection. The sound quality for the most part is excellent, but a few selections are over modulated and this distracts from the overall quality. But this is the best compilation available that offers listeners an excellent array of Como's covers of 70s hits.

This is an excellent collection from Australia covering a lot of ground; includes his biggest hits from the 1950's ("Catch A Falling Star", "Papa Loves Mambo", "Kewpie Doll", and the novelty tune "Delaware", which plays off the names of states). Also included are a lot of covers he recorded in the 1960's including "Yesterday", "We've only just begun", "(They Long To Be) Close To You),"I Left My Heart In San Fransisco", and "Moon River".

The sound quality is very good (having never heard some of the songs from other sources it's hard to say, but as far as I'm concerned the sound quality is very good to excellent, considering a lot of the songs are 40+ years old).

Perry's smooth and easy going style interpret these songs very well. He was able to take a song that somebody else may have done first and put his own mark on them.

For those of you who have been fans of Perry for many years (like myself), this is an excellent collection for the money that sounds great (a lot of these songs are very hard to find separately). Also for new Perry fans, this is a good starting place.

Highly Recommended.

While discussing Perry Como with a friend recently, I compared his style to Frank Sinatra-- my friend said she preffered Como! I can see why. Como has a voice and sings with the kind of style long since brushed aside by several generations of music fans-- too bad for them! I know this is more "my parent's music" than mine (and they got married late so it's really two generations difference there, not one) but as I listened to LEGENDARY PERRY COMO I was amazed at just how many of the songs I knew, and just how enjoyable the collection was.

The selection ranges from folk tunes to romantic standards to jazz-laced pop ("Juke Box Baby", "Glendora"-- THE song I bought the whole set for!) and novelty songs (a REALLY forgotten genre on top-40 radio for the last 25+ years). By the way, I'm pretty sure that IS Mitch Miller And The Gang on "Delaware". (I used to play their albums as a kid, too!)

While listenable, there's a certain quality in the SOUND that strongly suggests to me this BMG AUSTRALIA comp was duped off of VINYL. Alright for a casual listener, but "serious" Como fans might want to check out the pricier "remastered" collection, PERRY COMO: GREATEST HITS (also with 50 songs).

Maddenning (and it may be just MY copy), ONE track on this skipped-- wouldn't you know it was "Glendora"? (I had the 45 when I was a kid, but it disappeared 30 years ago.) Fortunately I was able to copy it on my computer-- otherwise I'd have to exchange it. For the price (especially from one of the "Marketplace" stores) this was a real bargain!