You got to spread joy up to the maximum

Continuing my trip back through the 1958 album charts.

07/12/58 : Dear Perry - Perry Como


Our second visit with Mr Como - it's fair to say my expectations aren't sky-high, but I suspect it will be listenable.

It was a tricky one to track down because in nearly every other country it was called Saturday Night With Mr C - I guess Mr C was just too informal for 50s Britain. But once we got there, it was quite the surprise - yes, it's dated but it doesn't sound nearly as bad as his '73 offering because it's got much more liveliness to it. I actually really quite liked "Accentuate The Positive" and "Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea" both of which had a nice swing to them. It was also nice to hear "Love Letters" because it reminded me of Alison Moyet's version (which is obviously far better) and "Like Someone In Love" because of the Bjork version (ditto). He also does a surprisingly decent job with "When I Fall In Love" - well, I've really been pretty positive about this, haven't I?

We've sunk even further to #8 in the chart this week on his second week of a two week run, having had a three week run a couple of weeks earlier, with #6 being as high as it got. The top five this week were the usual suspects of South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Elvis, Elvis and Frank but we actually have two new entries in the chart for the Oh Boy! soundtrack (#9) and Frank (#10 - and we'll have to wait until 1959 to listen to that one!).

Wikipedia tells us the album was structured to be like the request section of his TV show (and hence was called Thursday Night With Mr C in Australia because that's when it went out there) and is quite unusual for the time because it's in stereo and a hefty fifty minutes long. There's absolutely no word on critical or commercial reception though.

"Customers also listened to" Tony Bennett, Bing Crosby, Frankie Lane and Andy Williams - a proper rock and roll selection for you there. I can't say I loved this, but I enjoyed it a helluva lot more than I was expecting!

And, with that, we've already done the last week of the year where we've not met all the albums but we're only having to skip over one week this time (much bigger gaps will appear later in the year, I suspect).

23/11/58 - Irredeemably awful
14/12/58 - A very fine album

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