This six-song 10" LP compilation is keyed off
Rosemary Clooney's 1952 hit recording of the ballad "Tenderly," a perennial favorite thought to have sold a million copies over time. The disc is not all ballads, however.
Alec Wilder's "I'll Be Around" is also given slow and reverent treatment, but the first side ends with a typically blistering rendition of
Harold Arlen and
Johnny Mercer's 1941 hit "Blues in the Night," and the first two songs on the second side, a revival of the 1911 evergreen "Oh, You Beautiful Doll" and "The Lady Is a Tramp" (complete with a reference to
Frank Sinatra), are taken at a lively, jazzy pace before the strings and slow tempo return for Vernon Duke and E.Y. Harburg's "What Is There to Say."
Clooney is characteristically comfortable with the range of material, making this album, even in its short running time, a good primer of her considerable skills. ~ William Ruhlmann