Never deliberately flashy, Don Gibson had an unerring ability to take complex emotions and turn them into deceptively simple-sounding songs, and as any songwriter knows, that's far from an easy trick to pull off, but Gibson did it time and time again. Unassuming to a fault, his best songs like "Sweet Dreams" (a hit initially for Faron Young in 1955 but ultimately defined a few years later by Patsy Cline's version), "Oh Lonesome Me" (slowed down, a key track on Neil Young's After the Gold Rush album), and "I Can't Stop Loving You" (covered by countless artists, but most notably by Ray Charles) are models of graceful construction (amazingly, the latter two songs were written by Gibson in a trailer park on the exact same afternoon).
Although she spent eight years in Akron, Ohio as a child, Janis Martin Martin always said that Virginia was her home. She was born Janis Martin Darlene Martin in Sutherlin, Virginia on March 27, 1940. When you consider that Ringo Starr, who epitomized a later generation, was born just four months later, you realize how young she was when she started. "I had a mother who was a show business/stage type mother," she told Bob Allen. "Both my father and my uncle were amateur musicians, and I can't remember a time when I didn't play or sing." In February 1951, bluegrass star Jim Eanes settled near the Martins, and Janis Martin joined him on the radio. Too young to play bars, she became a supporting act and local added attraction when the big names came to town. By age fourteen, Janis Martin had graduated to WRVA's 'Old Dominion Barndance' in Richmond when the show was a big deal in the country music world. When Janis Martin joined in 1953, she performed alongside Hawkshaw Hawkins, Jean Shepard, the Carter Sisters, Sonny James, and Martha Carson.
This 13-CD set completely reissues the contents of the nine double-LP series of the same name, all 277 studio recordings (including 20 alternate takes placed on the 13th disc) that were made by Glenn Miller's extremely popular orchestra. In addition to all of the hits and the occasional jazz performances, the misses (and the many Ray Eberle vocals) are also on this set, so general collectors just wanting a taste of Miller's music would be better off getting a less expensive greatest-hits set. However, true Glenn Miller fans should consider this remarkable reissue to be essential; it's all here.
"That'll Flat… Git It!" is one of the best compilations of the 1950's rockabilly. Each volume contains nearly 30 songs, mostly rockabilly classics and unknown great artists. In spite the tracks were remastered, you can hear some noise, especially in the end of the tracks. This is because many songs were taken from original vinyl singles.
Singer, songwriter, and pianist Neil Sedaka enjoyed two distinct periods of commercial success in two slightly different styles of pop music: first, as a teen pop star in the late '50s and early '60s, then as a singer of more mature pop/rock in the '70s. In both phases, Sedaka, a classically trained pianist, composed the music for his hits, which he sang in a boyish tenor. And throughout, even when his performing career was at a low ebb, he served as a songwriter for other artists, resulting in a string of hits year in and year out, whether recorded by him or someone else. For himself, he wrote eight U.S. Top Ten pop hits, including the chart-toppers "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," "Laughter in the Rain," and "Bad Blood." The most successful cover of one of his compositions was Captain & Tennille's recording of "Love Will Keep Us Together," another number one.