Concentratin' On You: Her 51 Finest (1931-1959)

Listen on Presto Music. Free thirty day trial. Find out more.

With 51 tracks, a good booklet and decent re-mastering, there’s plenty here to enjoy if your tastes run to mostly good songs, elegantly delivered, some achieving hit status, all seasoned by fine... — Jazzwise, October 2021, 3 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 4th Jun 2021
Catalogue No: RTS4384
Label: Retrospective
Length: 2 hours 34 minutes

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Andy Razaf, Fats Waller: Concentratin' On You

Work length3:16

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Harold Adamson, Mack Gordon, Vincent Youmans: Time On My Hands

Work length3:18

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Fred Callahan, Hoagy Carmichael: Washboard Blues

Work length5:07

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Herb Magidson, Monty Siegel, Sammy Fain: Hummin' to Myself (I've Got the Words - I've Got the Tune)

Work length3:05

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Abel Baer, John Jacob Loeb, Paul Francis Webster: Me Minus You

Work length3:01

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Al Neilburg, Jerry Livingston, Marty Symes: It's the Talk of the Town

Work length3:03

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Edward Eliscu, Gus Kahn, Vincent Youmans: The Carioca

Work length3:16

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Arthur Freed, Nacio Herb Brown: All I Do Is Dream of You

Work length3:13

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Dorothy Fields, Jimmy McHugh: Lost In a Fog

Work length3:33

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Coslow: In the Middle of a Kiss

Work length3:01

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Harry Woods: I'll Never Say 'Never Again' Again

Work length2:34

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Dorothy Fields, Fats Waller, Jimmy McHugh: I Can't Give You Anything but Love

Work length2:55

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Abner Silver, Al Sherman, Jack Meskill: On the Beach At Bali-bali

Work length3:07

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Lew Brown, Sammy Fain: That Old Feeling

Work length2:55

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Bernie Hanighen, Johnny Mercer: Bob White

Work length2:39

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell, Bing Crosby and John Scott Trotter & His Orchestra, Connee Boswell, Bing Crosby
John Scott Trotter Orchestra

Williams, S: Basin Street Blues

Work length2:59

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell, Bing Crosby

Flotow: Martha (Ah, so Pure!)

Work length3:07

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Berlin, I: You Forgot to Remember

Work length3:02

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Bewster Higley, Daniel Kelley: Home On the Range

Work length2:36

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Noble, Ray: I hadn't anyone till you

Work length3:06

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Harry B. Smith, Victor Herbert: Gypsy Love Song

Work length2:47

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Duke Ellington, Henry Nemo, Irving Mills: I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart

Work length3:10

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Heusen: Deep in a Dream

Work length2:55

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Jimmy Monaco, Johnny Burke: An Apple for the Teacher

Work length3:05

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell, Bing Crosby

Frankie Carle, Jack Lawrence: Sunrise Serenade

Work length2:35

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Dick Rogers, Will Osborne: Between 18th and 19th On Chestnut Street

Work length3:04

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell, Bing Crosby

Tchaikovsky: On the Isle of May

Work length2:40

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Harry Akst, Joe Young, Sam Lewis: Dinah

Work length3:04

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Sy Oliver: Yes, Indeed!

Work length3:11

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell, Bing Crosby

Jerome Kern, Otto Harbach: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Work length3:11

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Albert Gamse, Jose Lacalle: Amapola (Pretty Little Poppy)

Work length3:03

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Frank Loesser, Victor Schertzinger: Sand In My Shoes

Work length3:15

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Buddy De Sylva, Jerome Kern: Look for the Silver Lining

Work length2:58

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Harold Arlen, Ted Koehler: Stormy Weather

Work length3:14

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Country Washburn, Dick Jurgens, Roger Lewis, Walter Donovan: One Dozen Roses

Work length2:52

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn: Let It Snow! Let Is Snow! Let It Snow!

Work length2:43

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Hoagy Carmichael, Jack Brooks: Ole Buttermilk Sky

Work length2:49

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Franz Lehár, Sigmund Spaeth: My Little Nest of Heavenly Blue (Serenade)

Work length3:08

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Lew Pollack, Ray Gilbert: That's a Plenty

Work length2:23

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell, Bing Crosby

Al Jacobs, Jimmie Crane, Milt Gabler: If I Give My Heart to You

Work length2:55

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Gene Austin, Jimmy McHugh: When My Sugar Walks Down the Street

Work length2:43

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Berlin, I: Say it isn't so

Work length3:24

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

trad.: When The Saints Go Marching In

Work length2:50

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Allan Copeland, Bill Norvas, New Orleans Rhythm Kings: Make Love to Me (Tin Roof Blues)

Work length2:59

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Berlin, I: Blue skies

Work length3:07

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Berlin, I: Always

Work length2:27

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Berlin, I: Cheek to cheek

Work length3:21

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Rodgers, R: Babes in Arms: My Funny Valentine

Work length2:38

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Rodgers, R: Pal Joey: I Could Write A Book

Work length2:28

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Rodgers, R: Babes in Arms: Where Or When

Work length4:15

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

Martha Boswell: I'm Gonna Cry

Work length2:41

$1.00

$1.30

Connee Boswell

About
Reviews
Explore

About

Here is the most comprehensive 2CD survey available of one of the great entertainers of the 30s-50s. Connee Boswell (1907-1976) was a truly outstanding vocal talent, becoming a big star despite having to overcome the disability of being confined to a wheelchair through polio. She rose to fame as the most talented part of the close harmony trio The Boswell Sisters (see Shout, Sister, Shout! on Retrospective RTS 4242), but she then carved a highly successful solo career from 1935 onwards. Her casual, swinging style was a strong influence on other singers such as Ella Fitzgerald. Concentratin’ On You provides the title and opens Retrospective’s winning collection of her 51 finest recordings, from her very first (I’m Gonna Cry) in 1925 to her last (Where Or When?) in 1959. She was one of the earliest white jazz singers, as the 1932 Me Minus You (with a fine Bunny Berigan trumpet solo) demonstrates, but also had the most persuasive touch with more commercial ballads such as Stormy Weather, Deep In A Dream, The Isle Of May or Sand In My Shoes. Connee was one of Bing Crosby’s favourite duet partners and the sequence includes six of their delightful vocal sparrings, including the chart-topping Bob White and An Apple For The Teacher. But every track by Connee Boswell is special.

Reviews

October 2021

With 51 tracks, a good booklet and decent re-mastering, there’s plenty here to enjoy if your tastes run to mostly good songs, elegantly delivered, some achieving hit status, all seasoned by fine musicianship and spiced by the occasional hot solo: viz Sy Oliver’s ‘Yes Indeed’, with righteous Boswell and Crosby, Spanier’s fiery plunger cornet prominent. Irving Berlin thought her ‘the finest ballad singer in the business’ but she could swing, too.

Concentratin' On You: Her 51 Finest (1931-1959)

2 CDs

Downloads

Contents

Download queue