Customer Reviews

The Vaughn Monroe Collection

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This recently released CD is yet another product from the UK that should prove of interest to serious Vaughn Monroe fans. It is a two disc collection which includes many of the songs recorded by Monroe when he was first at "Blue Bird" records and later, RCA Victor. What makes this collection different from those that are generally available is that it does not feature Vaughn's widely known hits such as "Racing With the Moon", "Ghost Riders", "Let It Snow!" and so forth. It does include "Ballerina". It does cover the range of Monroe's recording years by including such early releases such as "Under your Window" and "Whatever Happened to You" which are from 1940, to "Violins From Nowhere" and "Phantom Stage Coach" dated 1953.

The attraction of this two disc collection is its feature of tunes that probably have not been heard for some forty years or more and contains some real gems such as "Because" and "Just a Memory". The collection is rounded out by including some of Vaughn's side- kicks like Ziggy Talent, who performs the classic, "Sam You Made the Pants Too Long"and Marilyn Duke's version of "Daddy". The CD is accompanied by extensive and knowledgable liner notes along with the historical dates of the recordings themselves.

Vaughn Monroe used to be referred to as "the man with muscles in his voice". He was a good instrumentalist (trumpet), handsome and personable front man, and a guy who carried a tune quite well.

Was Monroe a better singer than Dick Todd or Bing's brother Bob Crosby? About on a par. But, whoa, Monroe was POPULAR! Girlies loved him, and still do, among women of a certain age.

And Monroe's band sold a lot, a lot of records, especially with hits like Riders In The Sky (find this title on other Monroe collections). A couple of his big-selling numbers, Ballerina and Mule Train, are on this two disc set. So are a lot of obscurities, a number of nice numbers very well played but totally unremembered, and some attempts to make a hit out of dross, like "Chocolate Choo-Choo". Boy, they wrote a lot of really dumb songs in the mid-1940s, and Vaughn Monroe recorded many of them.

But even if dull these are songs you'll hear nowhere else, played by a competent band: Sometimes a huge aggregation with strings & harps & everything. Sometimes a swing band that I wouldn't quite put on a par with Larry Clinton's, but in that category.

Two CDs with selections from 1941 to about '48, really nice 78 rpm transfers as this label is wont to do, and if you are a student of bands or of pop music, despite Monroe's big-selling stuff, you'll find this selection valuable for listening and illuminative of why the big bands petered out while vocalists took over. It's a good thing they put this out and if you are deep into the band era this will fill in some blank spaces in your listening program.

Out of the 50 songs, I found about 7 that were very enjoyable. These were mainly the bouncy swing tunes like "Requestfully Yours." The majority of songs had a sappy quality about them and insipid arrangements. The melodys are tired and Vaughn Monroe, though a likably guy, is a lackluster singer. Why did many otherwise great bands often record banal things like "O Promise Me" featured in this collection? I was very disappointed.

From reading the item description and previous user review of this 2 CD set I was sure this would be a great set to add to my audio collection. Upon opening the package I noticed the case was very flimsy and cracked in places. Once the case was open I saw the discs were loose in the case. During shipping most of the small plastic clips which hold the discs in place had broken off. Ok, no big deal as I bought it for the music, not the case and the case can easily be replaced with a generic one. Unfortunately, the CDs don't work in my CD player.

Attempting to play the CD results in rapid audio skips, drops, clicks, and stuttering of the audio tracks. Examining the data surface of the discs revealed no obvious abnormalities or scratches. I did notice, however, the words "CD-R 80min" in the hub ring. Checking these discs with the unix cdrecord program reports:

ATIP info from disk:
Indicated writing power: 6
Is not unrestricted
Is not erasable
Disk sub type: Medium Type B, low Beta category (B-) (4)
ATIP start of lead in: -11524 (97:28/26)
ATIP start of lead out: 359849 (79:59/74)
Disk type: Short strategy type (Phthalocyanine or similar)
Manuf. index: 13
Manufacturer: Multi Media Masters & Machinary SA

Since it wouldn't play properly I tried to rip it to my HDD using cdparanoia software with a Pioneer DVR-107D DVD+/-RW drive and later again using a Liteon LTR-24102B CD-RW drive. Neither would rip the discs properly as they both reported too many errors for cdparanoia to repair.

I'm going to attempt to return this for another copy. If the second copy works better, I'll update this review to reflect that.