Bobby Darin - The Essential

Anyone looking for a truly essential Bobby Darin single-disc set will have a tough go of it, as there isn't one on the market that covers both his stays at Atlantic and his brief tenure with Capitol. This disc collects Darin's work for Capitol between 1962 and 1965, a time in which Darin was mostly doing nightclub pop standards like "Moon River," "On the Street Where You Live," and "Call Me Irresponsible." He also made a short foray into Ray Charles-style country-pop, as evidenced by orchestrated versions of "From a Jack to a King," "Release Me," and "Eighteen Yellow Roses." These songs are less successful than the more swinging pop tunes like the wild "Hello, Dolly!" or the smoky take on "Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)," but the whole disc shows that Darin's stay with Capitol was not really a high point in his career artistically or commercially. Read More