Rating:
Genre: Vocal Music
Release Date: 09/30/2008
Run Time: 0:00

This three-disc, 44-track set, which was released to tie in with the My Music Series PBS television show with the same title, features a host of Italian-American singers from the 1950s and '60s, and the first thing that strikes one is just how many crooners of Italian descent have graced the American air waves in the past 60-some years, and this set doesn't include all of them by any means (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Perry Como, and Tony Bennett, to name just four, for instance, are not represented here). It certainly makes for a trip down memory lane, and hearing sides like Vic Damone's "On the Street Where You Live," Louis Prima's wonderfully ragged "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody" medley, Johnny Desmond's "Play Me Hearts and Flowers (I Wanna Cry)," Bobby Darin's "Beyond the Sea," and Eddie Fisher's "Oh! My Pa-Pa" almost makes one nostalgically yearn for simpler, better, and more hopeful times, although the very definition of nostalgia means it's all a matter of perception, and the eras these singers worked from in America were no doubt far from simple, probably just different rather than better, and hope is hope, no matter when it pops up in our lives. It's fun and comforting, though, to hear love and family sung about with such gusto, and from Al Martino to Tony Martin and Jerry Vale, there are some truly soothing and astounding voices on display here.

~Steve Leggett, All Music Guide

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Carlo Savina - Orchestra
Dorothy Stefanski - Editorial Supervision
Jeff Palo - Producer
Jim Pierson - Producer
Lisa Glines - Art Direction
Lisa Glines - Package Design
Steve Massie - Remastering
Robert Y. Kim - Discographical Annotation
Nola Leone - Arranger

Nice 'n' Easy
    Frank Sinatra / CD / 1960
Jazz Divas: Gold
    Various Artists / CD / 2007

Release Date: 09/30/2008
Genre: vocal
Run Time: 0:00