Customer Reviews

There I Sing / Swing Again

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What a joy this CD is. It is the CD transfer from a LP for RCA Victor recorded by Vaughn Monroe in the late 1950s when he had long since disbanded his orchetra.

What makes this CD special is that it was recorded in stereo at one of Victor's best studios and the sound is superb - so much so that you can even catch VM breathing on one of his releases.

The included songs are of course, his all-time milion sellers and backed up by new musical arrangements, Vaughn Monroe delivers a solid performance. If you had to have one VM CD in your library, you would not go wrong selecting this CD as the "must have".

Vaughn Monroe has the distinction of being a popular band leader who also functioned as his band's male vocalist. Other than Cab Calloway, I can't think of any vocalist-leader from that Era who was as successful. (Okay, Woody Herman was his band's male vocalist, but he was primarily a clarinetist, and saxophonist Tony Pastor also sang, but you get the point). Vaughn used his semi-operatic vocal style to rack up a string of big chart hits at the peak of the Big Band Era during the early to mid-40s. Monroe was still in good vocal form when he recorded the music for this RCA album. It was recorded in High Fidelity during the 1950s so the recording quality is sensational. But the really neat thing about this album is that Vaughn uses the top notch RCA studio musicians of the 1950s to turn out re-creations of his old hits that exceed the originals in quality. These performances are simply better than the originals. This is a must-have album for any fan of the Big Band Era; it has hi-fi sound and great musical performances. When others were recording tired sounding re-creations of hit Big Band records, Vaughn turned out an album full of fresh, vital sounding big band hit songs.

This Collectibles re-release of the 1958 RCA album "There I Sing/Swing it Again" is a nice CD to own,no doubt about it.Vaughn Munroe was one of the big names of the bigband era and his song"Racing with the Moon" was his stepping stone to the fame that followed.His band was very tight and live laid down a nice varied program of very danceable rhythms which all could dance to.Then again this is how ANY band played,if they wanted to survive and succeed in that very competitive musical landscape.Mind you Munroe's band was never a barnstorming outfit like Miller's,Goodman's,James,Dorsey's or Krupa's.It just had what others didn't...Munroe himself.Vaughn appealed not so much to the swingers as it did to the young girls who would stand around the stage looking dreamy eyed.As an example of his less than stellar appeal to the more jazz oriented of listeners,I will never forget a quote by bigband expert and ex-Metronome critic George Simon who said of Munroe's voice"...if Munroe would only open his mouth a little more,less of the sound would be forced to come out his nose".But hey,the public liked what it liked and Munroe sold alot of wax stacks for RCA.In fact after the war when the singers became more popular and the bands began to fall by the wayside,Munroe was able to keep on trucking well into the 50s.In fact he became a spokesperson for RCA on radio and TV.And,oh yes,Munroe took his singing and looked after his voice,like opera singers,very seriously.
Amongst the re-recorded hits on the CD like the aforementioned "Racing with the Moon" comes "Ghost Riders in the Sky","There I've said it again","Commodore Clipper","Take it Jackson","Blue Moon" and his seasonal smash "Let it Snow".I do have a "problem" with "Ghost Riders" though.It does NOT sound re-recorded but the original late 40s hit.It seems in mono for the "depth" the other stereo recordings have are completely lost here.I have compared the two and if I'm not mistaken,despite what the liner notes say,this is the original and not a recreation.
The 50s,with the intro of the LP,gave musicians alot more freedom to expand and expound on the musical candy they were dishing out;i.e.instead of being confined to around 3 minutes per record side,they now could play to their hearts content with little thought for the time demon.They also had a new friend in the studio too....stereo sound.With this in mind numerous musical labels both big and small were going back to the bigband musical mavens and signing them to lay down their songs both old and new in this newer and updated recording medium.It was a boost to many a bigband of the day and to the pockets of the companies who had the foresight to sign them.
This CD by Vaughn Munroe was no exception and the sounds you will hear here of his old hits and others included like "Rain" and "Boston Rocker" show Vaughn still had the goods but good,and the stereo recordings just enhance the entire proceedings.The arrangements are top notch all the way and Vaughn was still solid in the vocal department.As a bonus Collectibles has included four bonus tracks from other LPs of Vaughn's.The original LP liner notes are included inside also.
All in all a nice CD that all Vaughn Munroe and bigband fans alike will enjoy thoroughly.Recommended.