1 SARAH VAUGHAN I Cried for You [2:26]
2 GLORIA DE HAVEN Who's Sorry Now? [2:23]
3 PEGGY LEE Goody Goody [2:23]
4 JUDY GARLAND I'm Nobody's Baby [2:53]
5 ELLA FITZGERALD I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair [2:54]
6 CONNEE BOSWELL I'm All Dressed Up with a Broken Heart [3:09]
7 SARAH VAUGHAN Trouble is a Man [2:33]
8 THE DINNING SISTERS Where or When [2:39]
9 FRANCES LANGFORD Serenade in Blue [3:20]
10 BILLIE HOLIDAY Gloomy Sunday [3:10]
11 VERA LYNN You'll Never Know [3:25]
12 LENA HORNE Don't Take Your Love from Me [3:05]
13 MARTHA RAYE Melancholy Mood [3:01]
14 MAXINE SULLIVAN When Your Lover Has Gone [2:42]
15 KATE SMITH There Goes That Song Again [3:16]
16 MILDRED BAILEY Lover, Come Back to Me [3:12]
17 BETTY HUTTON I Wish I Didn't Love You So [3:04]
18 CONNEE BOSWELL The Boulevard of Broken Dreams [3:11]
19 DORIS DAY It's You or No One [1:44]
20 JUDY GARLAND I'm Always Chasing Rainbows [3:03]
Accompanied by various orchestras
If your lover hates you, or you've dumped your lover and you're glad, or if you're moping about the place, feeling low and blue, if your love is, in short, unreciprocated, or worthless, or if - let's get this over with, shall we - your heart is breaking or broken, you're chasing rainbows or building castles in the air, if you feel you're a sap or a fool, if it's all going wrong in the pumping organ department, then this might just be the disc to push you over the edge.
I wouldn't want that. And there is, it's true, and it's a scientific fact, companionship in the clutches of a good maudlin or gully-low song. So if you have spare time you could easily sing or weep along to this collection of twenty tracks lasting just shy of an hour.
Instantly you'd find that Sarah Vaughan's gleeful I Cried For You would turn tails on the Blue Devils and leave you feeling better after barely two minutes. Relieved, you'd be delighted to find that Gloria De Haven is accompanied by the luscious MGM Studio Orchestra under their youthful maestro, one Andr‚ Previn. I'm not going to mention the small typo that has converted Matty Malneck to Maineck because only a pedant would notice that the composer of that immortal masterpiece Goody Goody has been thus changed. It's sung with Peggy Lee's usual charm. Ella washes that man right out of her hair, always a good move, alongside painting the walls a new colour, and burning trinkets.
Connee Boswell, whom every good judge values highly, turns in a superior performance on her tracks, including the title track. If during this trek of despair you wish to be amused, try the conductor for The Dinning Sisters, themselves rather forgotten; he was Jack Fascinate. You might not know that Gloomy Sunday, so closely associated with Billie Holiday, actually began life as a Hungarian song-but it's true. The English words are by Sam Lewis, and Holiday is accompanied by Teddy Wilson and his orchestra.
Fans of all things British will welcome Vera Lynn singing that Harry Warren-Mack Gordon song, You'll Never Know, and nicely too. It's good to hear the instrumentalists of Artie Shaw's band getting a blow alongside Lena Horne, and even better to hear Maxine Sullivan and Mildred Bailey.
Surely you wouldn't remain down in the dumps after all this. You have no notes to read, however, just a track-listing, and rather dull transfers. So, altogether, a reasonable job for the broken hearted.
Jonathan Woolf
CD Reviews
ABC 476 4303
