BOBBY DARIN
Aces Back To Back (Hyena)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale

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Joel Dorn has been talking about his Bobby Darin project for years, and as passionate as Dorn is about the music he loves, fewer topics have elicited more excitement from a guy whose persona carries a heavy dose of carefully crafted 'world weariness.'

It doesn't take a full track, or even a full minute, of Aces Back To Back to get what the excitement was about. A full hour of Bobby Darin onstage at the top of his game and in the studio as you've never heard him before has got to excite anyone with even a passing interest in American popular music. As the young folks say, this is the shit.

Who else could slip Bob Dylan and Sammy Cahn into the same set and make them each work perfectly. As Dorn writes, "Bobby could play in Dion's front yard, as well as Sinatra's. Cats that can rock and roll can rarely swing, and vice versa. Bobby could do both."

And he could do even more. Like write 'em as well as he sung 'em. There's damn little he didn't do, musically, in a short life plagued with ill health. And everything he did, he did as well as he wanted and better than you could hope for.

As usual, Hyena adds value to the package with a bonus DVD containing 11 Darin performance tracks, including eight of the songs from the audio disc and three more from the "Lost Documentary Footage" catalog.

This is the tribute package that Bobby Darin's always deserved, and it should bring him another generation or two of fans. Let's face it, if you can't dig this, you might as well start digging your grave.

Track List:

This Could Be The Start Of Something Big * Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You * Song Sung Blue * All I Have To Do Is Dream * A Quarter To Nine * Alone Again Naturally * Beyond The Sea * I'll Be Your Baby Tonight * If I Were A Carpenter * A Simple Song Of Freedom * Up A Lazy River * Jive * Rainin' * Long Time Movin' * Dream Lover * Blue Skies * Moon River * All The Way * Mack The Knife * The Curtain Falls

Bonus DVD: This Could Be The Start Of Something Big * Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You * Song Sung Blue * All I Have To Do Is Dream * A Quarter To Nine * Alone Again Naturally * Beyond The Sea * Mack The Knife * Weeping Willow * One Of Those Songs * You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You

© 2004 - Shaun Dale