Reviewed by Ted Naron (Chicago)

The packaging of this album is a disgrace. To take one of the most elegantly sexy, eye-appealing songbirds ever, and portray her on the CD cover as a "paint-by-numbers" grotesque, is more than a disservice to Julie London. It’s a slam by Capitol on the value of her music. Capitol is using the paint-by-numbers motif to "brand" a series of reissues they’ve grouped under the banner Wild, Cool and Swingin’. "Paint-by-numbers" in common parlance is a synonym for "generic, rote, rudimentary, worthless." On a graphic level, paint-by-numbers is a pseudo-hip synonym for schlock, for the whole "thrift store art" look that was so camp, so amusing – oh, about eleven years ago. For some of the artists Capitol is presenting under this umbrella – Mrs. Miller, Wayne Newton – that’s appropriate. With others, like Bobby Darin and Julie London, it’s not, and worse, the insult comes from the company whose catalog these artists enrich. Whatever marketing genius thought this was a swell idea ought to be forced to listen to Newton’s Danke Schoen on endless repeat.

The CD booklet leaves one at a loss for words, but for a start, abominable will do. With six interior pages, it doesn’t seem much to ask that Capitol have found room to tell us who arranged the tracks, what LPs they appeared on, etc. Instead we get a page wasted on some faux-retro nonsense titled "The Art of Osculation," two more on next-to-meaningless hype, and nothing that might enhance the experience of listening to the music. Like the cover art, the inside of the booklet insults the singer. It all but screams, "There’s nothing really worth saying about her, is there?"

But there is.

The most remarkable thing about Julie London is remarkable indeed: that she used her erotic persona not so much to interpret songs as to change the nature of them to become something other than when sung by anyone else. Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan or Peggy Lee may have sung the definitive version of this or that tune, but London wasn’t playing the same game. This may be a function of her coming to recording only after starting a career as an actress. Born Julie Peck in 1926, London made her first movie in 1944 and had already been a sexpot in 13 films by the year of her first album (1956). As a singer she had technical limitations, but as an actress she knew how to work within these to create a song style consistent with the seductress image – and luckily, among her many physical attributes she had the ears to make it a highly musical style. She used her breathy, sexy, sultry voice (to use three of the 13 most often used Julie London adjectives – see Greg Gardner’s excellent London website for the other nine) not to sing a version of a song that could compete with someone else's on a scale of good to better to best, but to change it's meaning. The selections on this compilation seem to have been chosen to highlight that aspect of London's art.

Come On-A My House, when sung by one of the greatest pop singers of the century, Rosemary Clooney, was one of the worst records ever made. Her version (coerced and commanded by Columbia producer Mitch Miller) is just a dumb novelty tune – a impossible to take seriously. When London sings it, it’s a different song – a carnal invitation impossible to dismiss. When Mary Martin and others sang Cole Porter’s My Heart Belongs to Daddy, it was possible to take the line "dine on my fine finnan haddie" as a double entendre. With London, no misunderstanding is possible; her single-entendre sexuality rules out the possibility that she is actually preparing smoked Scottish fish for dinner. Girl Talk changes from a piece of instruction to a piece of seduction. Wives and Lovers is no longer friendly advice to a gal pal, but a threat.

London constructs these scenarios with certain stylistic tricks that may have been born of necessity. For instance, she sings in short, breath-in-your-ear phrases. No disciple of long-lined Sinatra-style phrasing, London’s typical unit consists of no more than three to five words, and phrases of two or even one word are not uncommon. She also has an interesting habit of falling off just a microtone in pitch at the end of many phrases, which has the effect of enhancing a sense of intimacy. And she almost never sings loud; on the rare occasions when she does, her voice changes character, taking on a harder, less attractive tone. (Lee and Sinatra sound like themselves no matter what the dynamics.) Yet even though these effects may be born of an insufficiency of chops, it’s impossible not to admire the way she uses them so musically and in the service of her persona. A persona that may have had very little to do with the real Julie Peck, but which was highly effective during a prolific mid-1950s to mid-1960s Liberty Records career that these selections encompass. (She was also used in a sensational Marlboro cigarette campaign during these years – "You get a lot to like in a Marlboro" – that no one alive at the time will forget.)

And she does swing. Backed on this album by various accompaniments from solo guitar to jazz combo to big band to orchestra, she is always subtly hip. Whether her jazz-flavored sensibility was shaped by her husband, songwriter-musician Bobby Troup (Route 66, Daddy), or whether she and Troup gravitated to each other because they both loved jazz, I don’t know. It is safe to assume that Troup had a lot to do with the various backings here, as he produced several of her albums, though he isn’t credited as arranger on any of these tracks. (The only arranger credit this album cares to tell you about is Gerald Wilson, on two tracks – Girl Talk and Watermelon Man. Both are standouts.)

Get this disc, throw out the liner notes and jewel box, and place it in your own empty one. (Did I mention that when you remove the CD from Capitol’s jewel box, you get to see the same hideous paint-by-numbers Julie as on the cover staring at you through the plastic, only minus the paint to fill the outlines? The effect is like seeing a human being flayed alive. Thanks again, Capitol.)

1. Come On-A My House (Bagdasarian, Saroyan)
2. My Heart Belongs to Daddy (Porter)
3. Girl Talk (Hefti, Troup)
4. You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To (Porter)
5. You’re My Thrill (Gorney, Clare)
6. Makin’ Whoopee (Kahn, Donaldson)
7. Black Coffee (Burke, Webster)
8. ‘Taint What You Do (Oliver, Young)
9. Blues in the Night (Arlen, Mercer)
10. Comin’ Through the Rye (Traditional)
11. Night Life (Nelson, Breeland, Buskirk)
12. You and the Night and the Music (Schwartz, Dietz)
13. Nice Girls Don’t Stay for Breakfast (Troup, Leshay)
14. Watermelon Man (Hancock)
15. Go Slow (Garcia, Kronk)
16. Wives and Lovers (Bacharach, David)
17. I Must Have that Man (McHugh, Fields)
18. Let There Be Love (Rand, Grant)
19. Mad About the Boy (Coward)
20. Daddy (Troup)
21. Love for Sale (Porter)
22. Mickey Mouse March (Dodd)

Various accompaniments by Russ Garcia, Jimmy Rowles, Pete King, Andre Previn, Dick Reynolds, Bud Shank, Gerald Wilson, others.

Capitol Records