Great Songs of the Heart (3-CD)

by Various Artists

Love songs are almost as old as the hills. They certainly date back to the twelfth century when the troubadours popularised writing love poems which eventually were set to music, and so it continued into the twentieth and the advent of recording technology. And for as long as there have been love songs, there have been songs with "heart" in the title. Irving Berlin's Be Careful, It's My Heart from the forties is a case in point, and that brings US to the decade in which we begin to chronicle our Great Songs of the Heart.Compiled by Austin Powell (whose previous Fantastic Voyage compilations include It Takes Two and the Forgotten 45s), the 3 CD set Great Songs of the Heart presents 90 songs of the heart released between 1951 and 1962. When rock 'n' roll came along in the mid-fifties, the love songs got simpler; the cleverly crafted lyrics of the great songwriters of the previous three decades gave way to the two-minute declaration of love in much simpler and straightforward language, but in the first half of the fifties the big stars of the day like Eddie Fisher, Doris Day, Kay Starr and Nat "King" Cole liked nothing better than to sing of new love, lost love and broken hearts, as you'll hear on our selection.Teen heartthrobs found new songs of the heart endeared them to their predominantly female teenage audience, while some singers eschewed newer love songs for old favourites like Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart, Young at Heart and Be Careful, It's My Heart. Across the pop, country and R&B markets in America, as rock 'n' roll gave way to a more homogenised pop music in the late fifties and early sixties, New York's Brill Building songwriting teams provided a ready supply of songs.It didn't matter how big a star you were, a song of the heart was never far away. Elvis is represented here with a song from the 1962 film Kid Galahad. Johnny Mathis, Jackie Wilson, Guy Mitchell and Glen Campbell are all here too, as are fifties hitmakers Jo Stafford and Julie London. Some of these recordings are readily known, others will hopefully be a pleasant addition to your musical collection. An ideal Valentine's Day gift, or a token of affection at any time of year, we hope you'll take them all to your heart.