I bought this discography in the hope it would offer a full update of the section of John Chintala's 1990s "Dean Martin: A Complete Guide to the 'Total Entertainer.'" It falls disappointingly short. Chintala provided the reader both a chronological list of Martin's recordings, with session details, as well as lists of Martin's records. The Thorpes give updated lists of cds, with cover images; the co-authors also give rather self-congratulatory shout-outs to their own worthy contributions to the documentation of Martin's career.
Like all discographers, they have to make choices: they chose to include only US and British issues, which seems fair on the surface. But that means their book completely omits the foundational collections of Martin's Capitol and Reprise recordings--the four big box sets from Germany-based Bear Family, with Mosaic Records, the kings of boxed, supremely well-documented reissues. Perhaps that's because their discographical rival Chintala contributed to the massive Bear Family project, which supplanted the Thorpes' own thwarted reissue project on Charly records. Whatever the reason, the omission severely compromises the completeness and utility of the Thorpe book.
Meanwhile, the album covers and other pictures in this new book are interesting though not always well-reproduced. The indexing makes it impossible to untangle the numerous legitimate and bootleg issues of Martin radio shows and concert appearances.
If you love Dean Martin's' work, this is an interesting book, but it could have been much more--the equivalent of the "Kick in the Head" that kept Dean "grinning."
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