Deanna Durbin - Can't Help Singing: Deanna Durbin 1936-1944
Can't Help Singing: Deanna Durbin 1936-1944
By Deanna Durbin
Very Good Condition. (Includes Cd, jewel case, and original artwork inserts, all in very good condition)
Many decades after her Garboesque retirement Miss Durbin continues to command a fiercely loyal fan base, and this intriguing release helps to explain why. Jasmine's presentation is straightforward and honest: these are caringly programmed snippets of Original Film Soundtracks, as opposed to recording-studio singles intended for radio airplay or jukebox bobbysoxers. Accordingly, the songs are presented uncut, in their film contexts, with lead-ins, play-outs and some unconvincing rehearsed applause. Historically, Universal's boxy, muffled sound, too faithfully reproduced here, gives cause to regret that Durbin's talents were squandered at a second-tier studio with limited technical expertise and even more mediocre musical production values. How musical film history might have been radically different had Durbin's contemporary Judy Garland humbly joined Joe Pasternak at Universal or Miss Durbin contracted to haughty Metro and Arthur Freed (not to mention Donen, Minnelli and Berkeley). Reflect, too, that neither Durbin nor Garland--both worked grindingly hard by their respective studios--was ever an influential recording-studio singer, since their film activities always took precedence over recordmaking.
This release contains over a half-dozen unique treasures. From CAN'T HELP SINGING we have no fewer than four Jerome Kern originals, among his last songs and, sadly, not among his best but suited to Durbin's exuberant style and the offbeat Golden State pioneering context. Kern's contemporary Robert Stolz contributes the Durbin signature tune "Waltzing in the clouds," from SPRING PARADE, Miss Durbin at her best. More rewardingly, in the noir CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY Durbin memorably introduces Frank Loesser's "Spring will be a little late this year" which deservedly became a jazz and cabaret standard. Durbin covers Irving Berlin's "Always" meltingly, at a dangerously slow tempo. Finally, from LADY ON A TRAIN there is her production-number cover of Cole Porter's "Night and day," her single best musical moment on film apart from the songs she introduced. Completists will also want her cover of "Begin the beguine," not included here. These are all more sophisticated, grownup songs, well integrated into the films' nightclub and spontaneous-performance settings, than the randomly inserted soprano showpieces that misrepresent and interfere with La Durbin's real vocal talents on film.
TRACK LISTING
1 My own
2 Il Bacio
3 It's raining sunbeams
4 Les filles de cadix
5 Ave Maria
6 Because
7 The last rose of summer
8 Home sweet home
9 Spring in my heart
10 One fine day
11 Poor butterfly
12 Annie Laurie
13 Kiss me again
14 My hero
15 Estrellita
16 Musetta's waltz song
17 Amapola
18 Loch Lomond
19 Love is all
20 It's foolish. but it's fun
21 Waltzing in the clouds
22 When April sings
23 Beneath the lights of home
24 Perhaps
25 God bless America
26 Love's old sweet song
27 Can't help singing
