A Vintage Year

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can either be sung a cappella (without accompaniment) or accompanied by musicians and instruments ranging from a single instrumentalist to a full symphony orchestra or big band. Singing is often done in a group of other musicians, such as in a choir of singers with different voice ranges, or in an ensemble with instrumentalists, such as a rock group or baroque ensemble.

Ruby & the Romantics have been poorly served by best-of collections, which are too brief and skimpy. This two-CD, 42-song set goes too far in the other direction, and not everything on here is exciting or worthy of multiple listens by any means. Still, too much is better than too little, and this does thoroughly cover the prime era of the original lineup at Kapp from 1963-1967. On the plus side, this convincingly demonstrates that there was more depth and quality than is commonly acknowledged to a group that is often remembered only for one song ("Our Day Will Come") or regarded as a lightweight pop-soul group.