This solid collection may strike June Christy fans as a little ironic because rather than stock her albums with standards the way that most of her peers did, the West Coast jazz vocalist was known for unearthing new and obscure songs. It's not that Christy neglected standards (in fact she recorded dozens of them over her 12-year run with Capitol Records), it's just that one gets the feeling that when she sang something like "I'm Glad There Is You" it was because she had something fresh or unique to bring to it. And she does put her own personal and idiosyncratic stamp on 20 of the songs here while two tunes haven't been recorded enough to become standards (the undeservedly obscure "Cry Like the Wind" and the swing-era novelty "Bei Mir Bist Du Schon"). So, when you add the song selection to the fact that this disc features the vocalist in orchestral, small-group jazz and big-band settings, the disc not only offers a much more complete portrait of the artist than the title suggests, but this is also one of the strongest entries in EMI's Sings the Standards series.

Long before he'd evolved into a fully-fledged cult figure, Joe Meek was the UK's first fully independent record producer. This unique 2CD set traces his career from his earliest sessions, as a sound balance engineer in the mid-'50s, to his emergence as a major songwriter and hit maker in the early '60s. It includes many of Meek's biggest records, including five UK # 1s by, Anne Shelton, Lonnie Donegan, Frankie Vaughan, Emile Ford and John Leyton, plus several other major million selling hits! Indeed, more than half of the sixty sides included herein were significant UK hits. This set also includes several collectors' rarities, previously unavailable on CD, most notably Gary Miller's unfeasibly-rare 'Moby Dick'. John Fraser's 'Golden Cage' and Geoff Goddard's 'Girl Bride'. If you are looking for what is by far the most interesting Joe Meek-related compilation for years then this is it!

This is an essential package! Whoever put this together obviously knew what they were doing, and all is placed in chronological order. Discs 1-3 are a terrific compilation of material from the MGM years, consisting of commercial recordings of soundtrack materal. If no recording was commercially released, the original soundtrack is used-great for such numbers as "Hoe Down" with Mickey Rooney! But the last disc makes this package essential-here is a pristine soundboard recording of Judy's final performance at the Palace Theater, MYC-2/24/52! She was concluding a 19-week engagement, and the atmosphere is electric. Fantastic stuff!

The Champs had a huge hit with "Tequila" in 1958 and its raw, loose barroom saxophone riff has kept it a radio, soundtrack, and drinking contest staple ever since.

In 1999, Collectors' Choice released Voices in Latin/The Freshman Year, which contained two complete albums – Voices in Latin (1958, originally released on Capitol) and The Freshman Year (1961, originally released on Capitol) – by the Four Freshmen on one compact disc.