Customer Reviews

For the Present / Other Side of

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When people typically think of Matt Monro's "classic years", they think of the early-1960s Sinatra-esque albums and hits. Here, we venture into the 1970s with two outstanding British releases. "For The Present" stands out for the George Martin production, plus his arranging and conducting of more than half of the album. Monro's take on the Beatles' "Michelle" is a standout, as is "Speak Softly Love (Love Theme from The Godfather)". Monro does not take chances, but Martin and company give him space for his personality and warmth to shine, even in modern material like "Bridge Over Troubled Water". He also tackles two songs from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" written by John Berry and Don Black.

The second album included here is 1975's "The Other Side Of The Stars". The production, by John Burgess, is more modern, almost slick at times, especially on the hit "You're Sensational." Yet, the arrangements by Colin Keyes retain their timeless feel, especially on "Let There Be Love" and "Let Me Sing And I'm Happy", a standout cover of the Al Jolson standard. This album has less contemporary songs -- in fact none of these could be considered originating from the rock generation, with his cover of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" probably the newest song included here.

These two albums stand as fine, even classic, examples of 1970s 'easy listening' recordings, on par with Perry Como and Andy Williams. If you own his boxed set, "The Singer's Singer", you have sampled several of these tracks. If you are interested in expanding your Matt Monro collection, this is a fine place to go.

Matt Monro was a regular feature of the British singles charts between 1960 and 1965, after which he had only one other UK hit (And you smiled, a top thirty entry in 1973, not released on an original album, only on compilations). Despite the lack of hits, Matt's music remained popular with adult audiences. So there are none of Matt's own hits on the two albums presented here, but you'll find plenty of familiar (and not-so-familiar) songs via Matt's covers of pop songs from the sixties and early seventies, as well as older songs from the Great American Songbook.

The first album, For the present, dates from 1973 and includes First of May (one of my favorite Bee Gees songs), Michelle (the Beatles classic that provided the Overlanders with their only hit) and Singing in the rain, an old movie song that provided Cliff Edwards with an American number one hit in 1929. Elsewhere on the album, the songs are not so familiar but they are equally interesting. Among them are Didn't we (written by Jimmy Webb, who achieved fame via hits he provided for Glen Campbell and others), I am (written by prolific songwriters Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway who wrote may famous sixties hits, but this wasn't one of them) and other songs that suit Matt ideally such as Till then my love and Sarah's coming home.

The second album (Other side of the stars) is actually Matt's tribute to other stars, these being Nat King Cole (Let there be love), Louis Armstrong (What a wonderful world), Cliff \Edwards and Al Bowlly (When you wish upon a star, which Cliff sang as Jimmy Cricket in Disney's Pinocchio movie, but Al had the American hit version), Judy Garland (Over the rainbow), Billie Holiday (For all we know - this is NOT the identically-titled song that the Carpenters recorded), Al Jolson (Let me sing and I'm happy), Mario Lanzo (Be my love), Glenn Miller (Chattanooga choo-choo), Jim Reeves (I love you because - Jim had the British hit and it's his version that inspired Matt), Edith Piaf (No regrets), Frank Sinatra (You're sentimental) and Maurice Chevalier (I'm not young anymore).

Matt may have been past his commercial peak by the time these albums were originally released, but they contain a lot of great music. Matt died in the eighties but his music remains popular and this re-issue is a must for all of Matt's committed fans, while it is likely to provide much pleasure to anybody who loves top quality easy listening pop music.