Customer Reviews

Movin'

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Movin' is a fantastic CD by Kay Starr and I'm somewhat unsure as to why this album is currently out of print. Kay Starr is in her best element here; she sings with energy and lots of passion. This is one CD that truly showcases Kay's ability to sing great songs. The sound quality is terrific; and that artwork is excellent; I believe it is the same artwork from the record album jacket when this was issued on LP in 1959.

"On A Slow Boat To China" is one of my very favorite songs by Kay Starr; and she sings this with a fantastic big band arrangement that never misses a beat! This tune celebrates the joys of love and romantic time alone with your sweetheart; and Only Kay could sing this as well as she does--it's truly the sweetest music to my ears! "I Cover The Waterfront" changes gears as Kay sings a song with a decidedly slower tempo--but make no mistake about it, this ballad is just as romantic as the first song was! "I Cover The Waterfront" is an especially fine torch song that Kay easily delivers with panache and a soulful energy that is absolutely infectious. "I Cover The Waterfront" is definitely a major highlight of this album.

"Around The World" has a fine upbeat melody and Kay Starr sings this with her singularly beautiful voice. The big band arrangement enhances the beauty of this timeless ballad; and I could never tire of hearing Kay's version of this tune! The brass is also used to great advantage. Great! "Sentimental Journey" is yet another classic tune that always moves me when I hear it; and Kay performs this flawlessly with all her heart and soul. Kay's voice truly has a good sized range and numbers like "Sentimental Journey" prove it very well. Again, the big band arrangement is very strong without drowning out Kay Starr; and this just oozes good taste and class.

"Riders In The Sky" has a great ukulele arrangement and Kay sings this very well; and listen for Kay Starr to outdo even herself on "Song Of The Wanderer." "Song Of The Wanderer" is a most romantic tune that Kay infuses with lots of oomph and I really like "Song Of The Wanderer."

"Lazy River" is an excellent, timeless classic that Kay sings as she swings and sways to make this a very special number. "Lazy River" is one of my favorite tunes on this CD and I always enjoy hearing Kay Starr sing it. The album closes well with Kay Starr performing "Movin'." "Movin'" has a great beat and Kay delivers this without singing a superfluous note! I love it!

Kay Starr remains one of the best female vocalists of the entire twentieth century; and that's saying quite a lot. I recommend this CD for her fans and people who like classic pop vocals will also want this album.

I saw Kay Starr last night, at a tribute to The Tuskegee Airmen in Palm Springs, CA, she was performing along with Herb Jeffries(age 89), Ernie Andrews, et. al... Starr still sounds great, she sang I Love Being Here With You, and her million selling stinkeroo Wheel Of Fortune(which she called "the song that built my house"). My wife & I were there swing dancing, and when I told Starr she was one of my favorite singers, she complimented back by saying we were some her favorite dancers. I had her sign my LP of "Movin" where she said it was one of her faves, and I told her how much I loved her version of Goin' To Chicago, and she sang a line or two of it for me. and I asked if she was influenced by Jimmy Rushing and she said "honey, I may white on the ouside, but you can sure bet I'm black on the inside." Well this CD re-issue of Movin' is proof of that. Here Starr puts her bluesy jazz phrasing on some jazz standards. Recomended as proof of Starr being one of the finest white jazz singers.

This is one of Starr's finest sessins for Capital records, in the 50's(the other an all ballad album in the early 60's with Ben webster titled "I Cry By Night"). With swinging arrangements and Starr's bluesy jazz phrasing has more in common with Jimmy Rushing then Doris Day. Starr was a jazz singer at heart and this all swing album gave her the chance to prove it. Starr sold out many times to commercial successes recording such middle of the road tunes as "Wheel Of Fortune" and "Bonapartes' Retreat," although even her most middle of the road tunes still had Starr's jazzy phrasing, which made her commercial recordings more listenable then say Patti Page's or Teresa Brewer's, Starr's were more in the class of Ella Fitzgerald's and Anita O'Day's. This re-issue of the 50's LP "Movin'" is highly recommeded as a good example of just how great of a jazz singer Starr was. Just listen to Basie/Rushing's "Goin' To Chicago Blues" and tell me that she wasn't influenced by Jimmy Rishing, not Patsy Cline, as another reviewer thinks.

Bluntly, Kay Starr is the misunderstood vocalist in the history of jazz! La Starr is actually as versatile as most jazz vocalists claim to be but really aren't?! Only Kay could up with an album with material diverse as "Riders In The Sky" and "Sentimental Journey" and make it work! Also, Starr was only jazz vocalist open mined-and eared-enough to listen to a the little known country singer named Patsy Cline and willing to learn something. "Night Train" and "Indiana" clearly demostrate that Kay had been checking out Cline's appearance on Arthur Godfrey's TV Show. Finally,the great thing about this CD is that Starr and arranger Van Alexander manage to make the theme of this "concept album" sound fresh despite the fact that disc is basically a travelogue.

In looking at the reviews I see here from 2000 and even 1999 I'm amused by some of the comments, put off by some and feel the need to correct another or two.
What I know of Kay personally I know through the only singer I place above her in my book though they are so different there is enough room on the top rung of my "Favorite Female Vocalists" ladder, Gogi Grant. Yet another grossly under rated and by the industry, egregiously mishandled and underused singers possessed of arguably the most beautiful voice ever gifted a woman by God.
According to Gogi, Kay Starr is a wonderful person. Just the type you'd expect. A Gal with a heart as big as her voice and charisma.
This album, "Movin'" is in my opinion her greatest "Swing" albums. Only it's sort of offbeat, in terms of concept that is, sequel "Movin' On Broadway" comes close though as one who has next to no use for "Show" tunes I can really only enjoy the arrangements on that album and get off on the few truly great songs among the rest of the Broadway corn.
One thing I haven't noticed here is any mention of Van Alexander. One of the great unsung and, talk about underrated Arranger/Conductors at Capitol. He and Kay were a match made in heaven. The title of this album is about the best single word for what all of his arrangements do. MOVE! There is a drive that mows thru all of his arrangements, even the slower ones. They just make you feel you are being propelled along. Careful when driving to these two albums with Kay and Van.
Alexander's use of the Saxophones in his arrangements display an ear for the instrument that I've never heard in any other Swing or Big Band arranger anywhere. For me, there are literally passages that make the hair on my arms stand up in waves.
How said that these two artists did not do more together - or apart for that matter, but together they were gold.

I'm sorry but I found another reviewer's mention of Kay learning from Patsy Cline kind of funny and cute. I'm a HUGE Patsy Cline fan. I think as natural forces go she was to Country what Judy Garland was to her genre. She was an entire league of her own. However if you read the books out there about her and also the wonderful book that comes with, assuming you can (if so you MUST) still get your hands on the four disc set that comprises her entire body of work. Somewhere in just about everything I've ever read about Patsy including a direct quote from her Widower Charlie Dick. Patsy's favorite singers were Kay Starr and Gogi Grant.
Kay was already recording in 1939. That would mean Patsy was somewhere near Kindergarten age.
By 1945 and '46 you can hear in Starr's Decca and Jewell sides all of the style and manner that she would ever possess. She had it. Just as Patsy had it from the start and Garland before them. Some are just born with it and Kay Starr is one of "those kind" of stars. Sure it got better and better. But if you listen to her earliest recordings you will be hard put to find in any later ones any obvious influence of any other singer.
She herself is quoted in a 1953 interview as saying "All my tricks come from that hillbilly singing on and on, yodeling and jumping octaves. She was born in Oklahoma and moved to Dallas as a toddler. Before ten she'd won a singing contest that earned her a fifteen minute radio program three times a week. In 1934 she her and her family moved to Memphis and she soon landed a regular slot on a radio show on the "Saturday Night Jamboree" broadcast on WMPS. It was then that little Katherine Starks became big Kay Starr.
Both the Capitol Collectors Series CD of Kay Starr's as well as Her Disc of RCA Singles contain liner books with great history and biographical material.
If you read them, you will see that Kay had to fight very hard to get "dibs" on practically every side she cut at Capitol as in those days, the practice was for a singer to present a list of desired songs to her producer who then, depending on his loyalties would return with the list with some or all songs crossed off as having been usurped by bigger "Names" like Peggy Lee, Nat "King" Cole, Margaret Whiting etc. -- Margaret Whiting! Sorry. Another friend of Gogi Grant who's place on any record I've admitted, while ducking, must have been due only to her father the song writer Richard Whiting's friends. Just my opinion.
I digress. Kay is quoted as saying that after having one list of songs after another swiped by the other artists at Capitol who it seemed by some great coincidence to have already planned to record every good number she asked to record, She turned for advice to the famous early Swing Era Bandleader, Red Nichols who suggested a number of tunes too old and obscure to catch the attention of her contemporaries at the label but great old numbers. Hence her propensity for making jewels out of some of the oddest and oldest songs for a singer of her day. Listen to her recording of "We Three" the best example of an obscure ancient song that only a true original like Kay Starr could make into something you can't possibly listen to just once. Sort of like that "Million selling 'Stinkeroo'" so artfully mentioned in another review by a fan. A backhanded compliment if ever I've heard one.
As for the "Color" ahem, in her voice. Well I'll just chalk that one off to what I'm guessing is the age of the reviewer who felt compelled to include that. I will, in all fairness say, that many's the time I've had friends listening to Kay at my home and just eating her up and then upon seeing her photo on an album cover, well, Yeah she can sound like something other than she what she is ethnically but after all her Father was full blooded Iroquois and her Mother Irish. Does anyone know what "They" sing like? I guess some people lack an edit button in their head. Assuming they have anything at all in that head.
As the time of this writing I'm waiting for the delivery of what I think is the greatest Country album ever recorded in a pop vein by a basically pop or jazz singer, if you will.
That is an AWESOME album. I defy anyone to listen to Kay's version of "Pins & Needles" without repeating it again and her Crazy is, well, it's all any version of that song done by anyone but Patsy Cline could be. Kay very wisely holds back style wise and sings it as almost as straight forwardly as Patsy and the result is the only listenable rendition of the song I've ever heard by anyone but Patsy Cline.
Look for it here on Amazon. In March 2006.

Margaret Whiting?

I was intrigued by the recent appearance of Kay Starr on the Les Paul DVD Tribute: "Chasin' Sound" (she's shown sitting in with Les during his Monday night gig at the Iridium in NYC). Hers was a name I remembered (but never had any special attraction to) from the 1950s, mostly in connection with hit parade '50s pop ephemera. I took it upon myself to look into her discography (much of it out of print and commanding prohibitive collectors' prices) and was in for a pleasant surprise.

This gal cannot only sing but swing! Some of the aggressive edge that I recall from her pop hits is present on these tracks, but somehow it sounds entirely different--a full and focused sound possessed by only a few select singers whose roots are in the big band/swing era. She's not merely a "belter" of Top 40 banality, but an intelligently commanding performer both in her choice of repertory and marriage of words and music through the kind of expressive phrasing associated with of only the best divas (Ella, Sarah, Billie, Carmen, Peggy, Doris, Dinah, Keely). It's clear from the reviews that plenty of listeners know as much already, so why are the record companies dragging their heels? How about a discriminating collection and remastering (without the usual gratuitous post-production boosted bass) of her best work--both on Capitol and RCA? (I wouldn't be surprised if both labels are now under the same umbrella, since we're down to 3-4 corporate conglomerates that produce over 80% of all commercially recorded and distributed music.)

The other Kay Starr album that really caught my attention was "Blue Starr." You can't go wrong with either album (and one is bound to lead to the other, and then yet another--I was as surprised by the quantity of her discography as its quality). But I think I have a slight preference for "Blue Starr" and would most likely recommend it as a starter to the musicians I know, if only because it immediately captures a dimension of Kay--confident singing with dead-center pitch and power to spare, but also the honesty and hint of vulnerability--that sets apart thoughtful interpreters from "merely" good singers, that distinguishes the genuine masters from the crowded field of crooners and torch singers. Two artists who inarguably belong to the former "masterful" category are Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra. And, of course, there's the Little Sparrow, Edith Piaf, composer and performer of "If You Love Me, Really Love Me." But be sure to add to that exhalted company another lofty Starr. (And give a listen to her version of Piaf's unforgettable French classic, also titled "Hymn a l'Amour.")

I saw Kay Starr last night, at a tribute to The Tuskegee Airmen in Palm Springs, CA, she was performing along with Herb Jeffries(age 89), Ernie Andrews, et. al... Starr still sounds great, she sang I Love Being Here With You, and her million selling stinkeroo Wheel Of Fortune(which she called "the song that built my house"). My wife & I were there swing dancing, and when I told Starr she was one of my favorite singers, she complimented back by saying we were some her favorite dancers. I had her sign my LP of "Movin" where she said it was one of her faves, and I told her how much I loved her version of Goin' To Chicago, and she sang a line or two of it for me. and I asked if she was influenced by Jimmy Rushing and she said "honey, I may white on the ouside, but you can sure bet I'm black on the inside." Well this CD re-issue of Movin' is proof of that. Here Starr puts her bluesy jazz phrasing on some jazz standards. Recomended as proof of Starr being one of the finest white jazz singers.