Customer Reviews

One More Sunrise: Best of

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

 

 

This collection is really two quite different CDs which, for some reason, are packaged together; they really have little in common except being by the same singer, England's Dickie Valentine, whom I've quickly grown to like since first hearing his voice not long ago.

The first CD is a collection of everything he recorded for England's Pye label (his earlier material was done for British Decca). While I don't like the songs as much as his earlier material, I still like what I heard. He was clearly trying to go with the trend of the late 1950s and sing in a bit more rock'n'roll-y style, and instead of Eddie Fisher (whose sound his early material reminds me of) I'd liken him to Ricky Nelson or Pat Boone. Still, to my ears his versions of Frankie Avalon's "Venus" and Dion's "Teenager in Love" sound at least as good as the originals, perhaps even better.

An interesting song on the first CD is the song that lent its title to the collection, "One More Sunrise." The song was better known to me with a German lyric, under the name "Morgen." I like this version quite a lot, and I think it's the first hint of a vocal power that Dickie Valentine didn't show in his early material. He shows it even more strongly in "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," which really bowled me over. After listening to the complete CD of his early songs and the more than a half CD that preceded this track, I was unprepared for the powerful voice that he shows in that song -- which he apparently mostly kept in reserve, because none of the other songs I've heard by him come close (with the exception of one song on the second CD, but see below!)

The second CD in the collection is from a live concert he did in the early 1960s. Though, unlike the first, it was all recorded at one time, there is a greater variation in the styles on this CD. He shows himself as a comedian, as well as an imitationist. (His impressions of Al Jolson and Johnnie Ray are particularly good; his Nat Cole impression, however, doesn't sound as much like Cole as the others do like their models.)

There are a few songs on this concert CD that are also found on the first CD, and on one ("Shalom") he puts some of that vocal power that I mentioned in my description of his recording of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" to bear, so that it sounds quite different from the version on the first CD. I actually like the concert version better than the first CD version.

I like almost all on both CDs, though I'd not include his version of "Hound Dog" on the second one. (I never liked the original, and he starts off with a fairly close imitation, so naturally I am not too fond of it.) But then he uses it as the basis for a comedy treatment, which is something of a saving bit.

All in all, I recommend this 2-CD set.