Secret Love: the Music of Doris Day

Karen Oberlin | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 19, 2002)
• Original Release Date: August 19, 2002
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Original Cast Record
• ASIN: B00006J067
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #442,470 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Close Your Eyes

2. Que Sera Sera

3. Nobody's Heart

4. While the Music Plays On

5. Yes

6. Secret Love

7. I'll Never Stop Loving You

8. I'll See You in My Dreams

9. Tulip Or Turnip

10. It's Magic

11. I'd Rather Be with You

12. The Night We Called It a Day

13. I Got Lost in His Arms

14. Sentimental Journey

15. Little Girl Blue

16. Put 'Em In A Box, Tie 'Em With A Ribbon

17. How Are Things in Glocca Morra

18. We'll Be Together Again

Editorial Reviews

David Hurst, Show Business Weekly

An inspired tribute... a lilting, light voice that is clean, honest and refreshingly free of artifice... a class act.

Product Description

Most people think of Doris Day as a Hollywood girl-next-door who sang in her films. Posterity hasn't quite placed her where she belongs: among a handful of truly great singers – Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney – who made lyrics sound so personal and true that you forgot you were hearing a so-called "performance." James Cagney, Day's co-star in Love me or Leave Me, summed up her gifts: "The touchstone is simplicity, the simple line of performance, directly to you, uncluttered." In her best and worst films, in "The Comb and Paper Polka" or in the Rodgers & Hart score of the movie Jumbo, Day's utter genuineness never fails to touch the heart.

So it is in Karen Oberlin's jazz-inspired salute to Day. For the last few years, Karen has charmed cabaret and theater audience in and out of New York, her hometown. Were this 1945 – the year that Day brought Les Brown's orchestra to its peak of glory with her vocal on "Sentimental Journey" – swing bandleaders would be vying for Karen's services. But we're lucky to have her here now: a singer who, like Day delivers each song with warmth, honesty, and no frills; who radiates positive energy; and who makes you feel she's by your side, singing in your ear.

-- James Gavin, author of Deep in a Dream: The long night of Chet Baker

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A magnificent tribute album, February 5, 2003

By 

Peter Durward Harris "Pete the music fan" (Leicester England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Secret Love: the Music of Doris Day (Audio CD)

This is one of three Doris Day tribute albums that I own. All are brilliant, but in different ways. None of them are straight copies and there are fewer songs that they share in common than one might expect. Karen's interest in Doris's music was really stirred when she heard some of the early jazzy recordings that Doris made with Les Brown. Karen firmly believes that Doris is not taken as seriously as she should be, so this album avoids anything lightweight. The style of the album is jazz, using piano, bass, drums, guitar, tenor sax and flugelhorn.

Whatever will be will be (Que sera sera) is given a completely different arrangement, created especially for Karen, which brings out the true meaning of the song. The result is impressive. Karen states that two her favorite albums are Duet and Day by night. Doris recorded Close your eyes twice, once for each of those albums. Karen's version opens this set. Yes and Nobody's heart are two other songs on Duet that Karen covered for this album, which also includes The night we called it a day from Day by night.

Secret love, I'll never stop loving you, It's magic and Sentimental journey are four famous classics here, all exquisitely covered by Karen. I'm not sure if How are things in Glocca Morra? really belongs in this collection, but I love that song as much as Karen does, and Doris did actually sing the song.

With eighteen tracks, all of them wonderful, this is a great tribute to Doris. It is my first Karen Oberlin album, but it certainly won't be my last.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Return of Doris (or at least the next best thing), January 27, 2005

By 

Samuel Chell (Kenosha,, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Secret Love: the Music of Doris Day (Audio CD)

Probably because she first came to my attention as a movie star--and as the polar opposite of the screen sirens who stirred the hormones of a teen-aged boy--Doris Day somehow never reached me as a singer. It's been only in recent years that her voice, with its consistency, vibrancy, power and freshness, inerrant pitch and sublime musicality, has led me to collect her recordings. There's no question in my mind now that she was the real deal--a seasoned trouper who learned her craft in the '40's and could hold her own in front of any of the big bands--probably even without a microphone. There's an "edge" to every one of her performances, but nothing was forced. Moreover, as anyone who has seen her as Calamity Jane knows, she was the complete package: the voice, the persona (if that's an accurate term for so natural a presence), and the indomitable, unflagging spirit were all one.

Karen Oberlin's generous album (18 tunes!) is both a heartfelt homage to the great forebearer and a sparkling and highly personal set of performances that would do any present-day singer proud. She replaces Doris's tightly spinning vibrato with a smoother, more "contemporary," tone and employs more dynamic contrasts than Doris, allowing today's sensitive microphones to catch subtle shadings and vocal inflections. On "Que Sera," for example, the second "will be" in "whatever will be, will be" becomes not a repetitious iamb but an unexpected trochee in the artist's playful, dramatically effective emphasis on "will." On "It's Magic" she practically makes us associate the magical with the miraculous in her slight pause and then embracing of the critical word.

Credit, too, the always surprising arrangements of pianist Peter Firth and the sensitive accompaniment provided by two of New York's finest--David Fink (ironically, a favorite bassist of Andre Previn, who accompanied Doris on one of her most memorable albums) and Kenny Washington (also the preferred drummer of hard boppers like Johnny Griffin).

Oberlin includes the little-known jewels, such as R&H's "Nobody's Heart," alongside the '50's Hit Parade songs. But even the latter sound like staples in the Great American Songbook (newly minted ones at that) thanks to the inspired musicianship, good taste, and respect for the overseeing muse that is in abundant evidence throughout the project. The entire program is a labor of love, one that no listener (even someone who doesn't remember Doris) can't help but love.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite singer, December 8, 2006

By 

Chuck Hajdu (Clarksville, TN) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Secret Love: the Music of Doris Day (Audio CD)

This is without a doubt my favorite CD ever. I have been fortunate enough to hear Ms. Oberlin perform live many times in NYC and this CD almost captures the beauty of her live performances.

Her rendition of How Are Things in Glocca Morra is the greatest version ever sung. She now owns that song!!