Kay Starr: A Rising Starr auf 2 CDs

These two CD’s contain Kay’s earliest recordings, mainly from 1944 to 1946, but beginning with two tracks she recorded in 1939 with Glenn Miller when his regular female singer, Marion Hutton, was ill. While Kay’s later recordings were much more in what was then mainstream pop, these recordings are firmly rooted in jazz. During the period covered, Kay was the female singer with several bands, including Charlie Barnet and his orchestra, Les Paul and his trio featuring Joe Venuti and Ben Pollack and his orchestra. The songs recorded with these bands fill most of the first CD. The other tracks are the two with Glenn Miller, one with Wingy Manone and his orchestra and two with the Capitol International Jazzmen – they were a star-studded line-up, including Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins and Nat King Cole. These tracks were recorded for several different labels and it is a credit to the compilers that they have been able to bring them all together. The second CD features Kay’s recordings for the Lamplighter label in 1946, after which she moved to Capitol where she had a successful solo career. Those tracks are available on several other compilations. Because this compilation attempts to include everything that Kay recorded before signing for Capitol (except alternate takes), some songs are duplicated because Kay sometimes recorded the same song for different labels, usually with different bands. This does not detract from what is a wonderful collection of Kay’s early music.