Dinah Shore

The GSC compilation 36 All-Time Greatest Hits does offer three-dozen solid songs by Dinah Shore, one of America's foremost entertainers from the '40s to the '60s, though they're scattered across three discs and the performances are of a dodgy vintage…

One of America's most popular entertainers long after her mid-'40s commercial peak, Dinah Shore was the first major vocalist to break away from the big-band format and begin a solo-billed career. During the '40s, she recorded several of the decade's biggest singles - "Buttons and Bows," "The Gypsy," and "I'll Walk Alone" - all of which spent more than a month at number one on the Hit Parade. After launching a television variety series in 1951, Shore appeared on one program or another, with few gaps, into the 1980s.

This 20-track British compilation contains some of Dinah Shore's earliest recordings, originally released on RCA Victor Records and its subsidiary Bluebird between 1940 and 1942. Some of Shore's hits of the period are included, among them "Blues in the Night," "I Hear a Rhapsody," and "Yes, My Darling Daughter." But many of her other hits are missing, and the bulk of the set consists of her covers of songs that were hits for others, such as "You and I" (Glenn Miller), "Down Argentina Way" (Bob Crosby), and "Manhattan Serenade" (Tommy Dorsey). Even at this early stage, Shore's Southern charm is on display on songs like "Honeysuckle Rose," presaging the hits from later in the decade that would make her the most popular female singer on records of the 1940s.

One of America's most popular entertainers long after her mid-'40s commercial peak, Dinah Shore was the first major vocalist to break away from the big-band format and begin a solo-billed career. During the '40s, she recorded several of the decade's biggest singles - "Buttons and Bows," "The Gypsy," and "I'll Walk Alone" - all of which spent more than a month at number one on the Hit Parade. After launching a television variety series in 1951, Shore appeared on one program or another, with few gaps, into the 1980s.