Lee Wiley - Sings Irving Berlin '1952

Tracks list

Surprisingly (and temporarily) employed by Mitch Miller at the major label
Columbia Records, Lee Wiley followed up the stunning Night in Manhattan with two
further 10" LPs recorded in the late fall of 1951 and released simultaneously in
1952, discs that took off from her celebrated songbook albums for the Liberty
Music Shop label back in 1939-40. At that time, she had devoted collections to
George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and
Harold Arlen. Now, she addressed Vincent Youmans and Irving Berlin. Unlike Night
in Manhattan, which featured Bobby Hackett, Joe Bushkin, and a string section
for accompaniment (and unlike the Liberty Music Shop albums that featured a
small jazz band), the Youmans and Berlin LPs used a double-piano backup from
Stan Freeman and Cy Walter. For the Berlin album, Wiley made sometimes
surprising choices of eight compositions from the songwriter's vast catalog,
ranging from 1922's non-production song "Some Sunny Day" to 1946's "I Got Lost
in His Arms," from Annie Get Your Gun. Among the unsurprising inclusions were
two tunes associated with a major Wiley influence, Ethel Waters, who introduced
both "Heat Wave" and "Supper Time" in 1933's As Thousands Cheer. And Wiley
equaled Waters' versatility on the contrasting tones of those two very different
songs. Less expected were relative obscurities like the sprightly "Some Sunny
Day" and "How Many Times," while "Fools Fall in Love," a 1940 composition from
Louisiana Purchase, was almost completely forgotten a decade later. The
selections made for an album of varying moods on which Wiley worked well with
the pianists, who were given plenty of room and used it to emphasize the 1920s
feel of Berlin's tunes (even when they dated from the 1930s and '40s). The
collection was hardly a definitive portrait of the songwriter, but it did give a
sense of the breadth of his talent, as well as that of the singer.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Lee Wiley with Stan Freeman and Cy Walter - How Deep Is The Ocean (How
High Is The Sky) (2:52)
1.02 - Lee Wiley with Stan Freeman and Cy Walter - Some Sunny Day (2:32)
1.03 - Lee Wiley with Stan Freeman and Cy Walter - I Got Lost In His Arms (3:00)
1.04 - Lee Wiley with Stan Freeman and Cy Walter - Heat Wave (2:23)
1.05 - Lee Wiley with Stan Freeman and Cy Walter - Soft Lights And Sweet Music
(2:35)
1.06 - Lee Wiley with Stan Freeman and Cy Walter - Fools Fall in Love (2:55)
1.07 - Lee Wiley with Stan Freeman and Cy Walter - How Many Times (2:26)
1.08 - Lee Wiley with Stan Freeman and Cy Walter - Supper Time (2:37)

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