Golden Age of the Andrew Sisters [Box]

Performer: The Andrews Sisters
Artist: Bing Crosby; Danny Kaye; Dick Haymes
Producer: Geoff Milne (Compilation)
Distributor: City Hall

Notes: Personnel includes: Laverne Andrews, Maxene Andrews, Patty Andrews, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Dick Haymes. All tracks have been digitally remastered. Contains 110 tracks. Since the 50-year limit on copyrights in Europe has led to a flurry of Andrews Sisters releases beginning in the early '90s, it's worth pointing out that the British Jasmine label is not just another fly-by-night outfit cobbling together a bunch of old 78s. The four-disc Golden Age of the Andrews Sisters, with a running time of more than four-and-three-quarters hours, contains more tracks -- 101 -- than any previously released Andrews Sisters compilation. The sound quality is good, if not as good as the legitimate American reissues on MCA, and the 12-page CD booklet contains basic annotations. That said, the selection is somewhat eccentric. Essentially, this is a "the best and the rest" collection: the first two discs contain all of the Andrews Sisters' Top Ten hits, as ranked in Joel Whitburn's book of chart reconstructions, Pop Memories. For the most part, they are in chronological order, though a handful of tracks that reached numbers ten through 12 are bunched at the end. Discs three and four contain another three chart entries among their 51 tracks, but otherwise ignore the 60 additional Andrews Sisters recordings listed in Whitburn that peaked between numbers 12 and 30 in favor of utterly obscure material; B-sides and records that never sold well enough to earn a chart ranking. This hits-and-misses approach leaves out lots of good and well-remembered Andrews Sisters recordings. It also makes room for some interesting ones, including the sisters' versions of the show tunes "Guys and Dolls" and "Wunderbar" and the swing standard "Sing, Sing, Sing," plus two performances from the soundtrack to Private Buckaroo. (Of course, keeping to the 50-year limit, none of their recordings from after 1951 are included.) This not the ideal Andrews Sisters compilation, but it is far more extensive than any their American copyright holders have produced. ~ William Ruhlmann

Modeling their career after the Boswell Sisters, an earlier singing family act, Minnesota's Andrews Sisters--Patty, Maxine, and LaVerne--were one of the most popular vocal groups of the 1940s and are synonymous with America's cultural zeitgeist during World War II. Adept at swing, jazz, and pop, the Andrews Sisters' talents extended beyond the recording studio and concert halls to the big screen, as they appeared in numerous Hollywood features during their career. Tireless supporters of the war effort, the trio were well known for their work with the USO, entertaining troops throughout the 1940s. The sisters performed, as a group and solo, until LaVerne's death in 1967.

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