excellent twofer CD--BRAVO, KITTY KALLEN !!! - If I Give My Heart to You/Honky Tonk Angel is a fantastic twofer CD by the great Kitty Kallen. Unfortunately, Kitty s career wasn t as long as I wished it was! However, while she was in the show business industry she really gave it her all, and this CD proves it. We get all the tracks from two of Kitty s record albums named If I Give My Heart To You and Honky Tonk Angel. The sound quality is great and I love that artwork!Need Me starts off the track set and Kitty sings this passionately with all her heart and soul. Kitty s voice sounds like silk and the strings enhance the beauty of this ballad. Always In My Heart features Kitty front and center--I love it! The melody is lush but make no mistake about it--Kitty is squarely in the spotlight. Never In A Million Years also gets the royal treatment from Kitty, and that horn solo enhances the number as Kitty aces this so effortlessly. Great!Got A Date With An Angel is a cute little tune about a young woman who s got a date with the man she loves, and the backup chorus actually works to enhance the number instead of distracting your attention from Kitty. That Old Feeling has always been one of my very favorite classic pop tunes, and Kitty sings this so well it truly does tug at my heartstrings. Listen also for Vaya Con Dios, this number starts with Kitty singing in English--in fact, most of this number is in English. Vaya Con Dios is easily a major highlight of this album. I ll Never Stand In Your way has Kitty singing her heart out and the percussion subtly helps the melody along very nicely. Be My Life s Companion is another cute little tune that features Kitty giving this all her might to make this number very memorable. You Are My Sunshine sounds just so good when the great Kitty Kallen sings it, she makes this old ballad seem fresh and new all over again. Someday (You ll Want Me To Want You) also has Kitty delivering a ballad with her very special talents, and Someday (You ll Want Me To Want You) is a great highlight of this album. The CD ends nicely with Kitty Kallen performing Hey, Good Lookin . Hey, Good Lookin really swings brightly and this makes such a strong ending for this CD that you ll find yourself pushing the play button on your CD player without any hesitation!Kitty Kallen will always be a huge star in my book, she just had a certain quality of singing that I rarely hear or enjoy. Kitty Kallen fans will certainly want this fine CD, and this isn t a bad starter CD either! Enjoy!
A Mixed Bag - Although the two albums on this CD are both Columbia albums from the same period, they are vastly different. If I Give My Heart to You represents the more traditional standards in a vocal appraoch similar to Kitty Kallen s big hits like Little Things Mean a Lot and In the Chapel in the Moonlight from the mid-50 s. All 12 selections on this album are in that familiar style and are quite good. The second album, Honky Tonk Angel, is Kitty s attempt to cover Country and Western songs and it is not nearly as successful. There are a few good numbers here, most notably the slow ballads, but the uptempo selections are not her best efforts. However, the If I Give My Heart to You album is so good that it outweighs the less successful Honky Tonk Angel album. Anyone who is a Kitty Kallen fan, like me, will welcome this CD, particularly as there isn t that much Kitty Kallen music out there.