Customer Reviews

Teresa Brewer: 16 Most Requested Songs

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2 star:		(1)
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From country yodelling to blasting rock, to soft and smooth ballads, this CD shows that Teresa Brewer can handle all kinds of songs in a very convincing and pleasing way. Most songs are compiled from other releases, and they are a good blend for one CD. For non-Brewer fans, this is also a great intro to her varied repertoire.

Some people cannot take Teresa seriously because of some of the novelty songs that she recorded in the fifties. That is their loss - even in the fifties, the novelty songs were only a small part of her repertoire. Teresa has a very expressive voice, adaptable to any type of song in many different genres.

Teresa's earliest recordings were jazz, but she quickly switched to pop music, in which she was very successful during the fifties. Even during her pop career, Teresa demonstrated her versatility by recording covers of country and R+B songs. Eventually, Teresa returned to her jazz roots and it is from her jazz recordings that this compilation was assembled. As such, I cannot believe that these really are her 16 most requested songs but there is a lot of great music so I'm not complaining.

Although this is definitely a jazz album, Teresa's enthusiasm for other forms of music shows in the song selection. Rock'n'roll is represented by School days (Chuck Berry), while Delta Dawn (Tanya Tucker - this was also covered by Helen Reddy who had a huge American pop hit with it), Danny's song (Anne Murray) and The pilgrim chapter 33 (Kris Kristofferson) are all covers of country songs. A cover of Leadbelly's classic Cotton fields is also included. All these songs are re-interpreted as jazz songs.

Some of the choices are more obvious songs for a jazz album, such as Ol' man Mose (Louis Armstrong), Bei mir bist du shon (Andrews sisters), Romance in the dark (originally a hit for Larry Clinton with Bea Wain singing), Together (originally a nimber one hit for Paul Whiteman in 1928 but also a huge hit when revived as a duet by Helen Forrest and Dick Haymes in 1944 - in both those years, other versions also charted high) and Hurry on down (Nellie Lutcher).

There are some very obscure songs here including Cake walking babies (a minor 1925 hit for Clarence Williams' blue five) and You've been a good old wagon but you've done broken down (an 1896 hit for Len Spencer).

This is an excellent selection of Teresa's jazz recordings.

I disagree with so-called Mr. Music's review . This is a dynamite cd . One of the best female singers of all time.
And the backing band is Outstanding ! Bravo Teresa !!!!!

Some of the ones from the 50s but not the memorable ones. Mostly from her Jazz accompaniment groups and night club gigs. Not worth getting unless you're into lounge acts at the neighborhood bar.

Terea Brewer never has been and never will be a jazz singer, she always will be a middle of the road pop singer. This CD where Brewer tries to a sing a couple of jazz satdards like New Orleans just shows how awful a singer she is, her squeeky Betty Boop like voice is unbearable. Stay away from this if you have any respect for the art of jazz singing.