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Their eyes lit up and they recounted the many memories of listening to these songs on the radio during the war. I listened to this with my father - a WW II vet (Navy) and my mother.
This album and its companion Vol.1 are exellent to own for those who like the music during the 1940s.
Hey this is music made before I was born, although maybe I picked it up in the womb. Billie Holiday's Lover Man. Male crooner and three female harmonies was another trade mark of the times. Directly below are a few comments from my Radio day review that fit here and below that some specific comments on the CD being reviewed. The realities of the world at that time seemingly only allowed for nightmares. Why is it in my head.
Let me keep this one simple- I could get through war, pestilence and the apocalypse as long as I had a Billie album with me. Yes, here is one more thing to blame on Woody Allen, as if he hasn't had enough problems in his life. Earlier this year I watched and reviewed in this space the film Radio Days that Woody directed. In the end it is this musical backdrop that makes Radio Days most memorable to me.Allen's youth, during the heart of World War II, was time when one needed to be able to dream a little.
The rough and tumble of my parents raising a bunch of kids might have taken the edge off it but the dreams remained. I am also a child of Rock and Roll but those above-mentioned tunes were the melodies that my mother and father came of age to and the stuff of their dreams during World War II and its aftermath. Nice work, Woody.The highlights here are Vaughan Monroe's There I've Said It Again.
Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters hit with Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby. .I am a first generation child of the television age, although in recent years I have spent more time kicking and screaming about that fact than watching the damn thing. This is the time of the male crooner and the big band orchestra and Monroe combines both here. Every since then in the deep recesses of my brain the tunes Paper Dolls and Sentimental Journey have been pounding away.
My feeling is that this film touched a lot of sentimental nerves for the World War II generation (that so-called `greatest generation') whether it was his Jewish families (as portrayed here) on the shores of New York's Far Rockaway or my Irish families on the shores of Quincy, Massachusetts. I am just old enough, although about a half generation behind Allen, to remember the strains of songs like Paper Dolls and Autumn Leaves that he grew up with and that are nicely interspersed throughout his story as backdrop floating in the background of my own house. I am still a child of my generation and fought the anti-Vietnam War fight to the tunes of Bob Dylan's Desolation Row and The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter but I think I can make a little room for this, if only to keep my brain from stopping that pounding. Nevertheless I can appreciate Director (and narrator) Woody Allen's valentine to the radio days of his youth.
So, if you like that great Big Band sound, or want to get a glimpse into the world of WW2, then get this album. (I looked around, and found an English version of Lili Marlene, but it didn't have the heart of this German version).I must say that I found this to be a very good album. I miss my GI father, who passed away a year ago, and I felt like I captured a little piece of him when I listened to the music he loved all those years ago. This excellent album contains eighteen songs that were popular during the WW2 years. I highly recommend it. I've Said It Again, and When My Man Comes Home). The album starts with that well-known hit Juke Box Saturday Night (performed by Glenn Miller & His Orchestra)., and then moves between jazzy hits (such as On The Atchison, Topeka And Santa Fe, and Caldonia) and bluesy tunes (such as There. I must say, my favorites were two tunes I don't think I have heard before - Ration Blues by Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five, and Marlene Dietrich's German version of Lili Marlene.
This CD is a great collection of songs from the WWII era.I recomend it to 40's song lovers and WWII buffs.
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