Song of the Day: "Friendly Persuasion (Thee I Love)"

ARTIST: The Four Aces
TITLE: "Friendly Persuasion (Thee I Love)"
YEAR: 1956

Written for the 1956 film Friendly Persuasion, this song has been cut by many different artists, but it's the version by The Four Aces I know best. For whatever reason, this nice '50s love song has been in my head today. It's a good tune and worth hearing.

For the record, other popular versions include one by Pat Boone and an instrumental take by George Shearing. It's also been recorded by the likes of Johnny Mathis, Gladys Knight, and Tony Perkins.

I can't find anywhere to link to the version by The Four Aces, so enjoy a rendition by The Lettermen here.

The Essential Johnny Mathis

The Essential Johnny Mathis is a nice, two-disc, multiple-decade-spanning overview of Johnny Mathis's music. Obviously, when you're dealing with somebody with a lengthy career and large output level like Mathis, two discs will omit loads of hits and other tracks; therefore, I won't look at this in terms of what was left off, because it would take a box set to even begin assembling Mathis's various hits and whatnot. I'll focus on what is included, and that is a very good collection of Mathis's tunes that takes one through the years with some of his 50s favorites ("It's Not for Me to Say," "Chances Are") and 60s ("What Will Mary Say," "Gina") and 70s ("I'm Coming Home," "Life Is a Song Worth Singing") hits, some show tunes ("What I Did for Love," "Memory") and some Christmas classics ("When a Child Is Born," "Sleigh Ride.") Basically, you get a little bit of everything, rounded out with some of Mathis's later recordings ("Unbreak My Heart," "Because You Loved Me"). Overall, I rate this set highly for achieving what it sets out to do: representing in two CDs the many facets of the versatile Johnny Mathis.

Tracks:
1. Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)
2. When Sunny Gets Blue
3. It's Not for Me to Say
4. Wonderful! Wonderful!
5. Chances Are
6. No Love (But Your Love)
7. The Twelfth of Never
8. Wild Is the Wind
9. Teacher, Teacher
10. A Certain Smile
11. Sleigh Ride
12. My Funny Valentine
13. Misty
14. Small World
15. Maria
16. Dancing on the Ceiling
17. Stairway to the Stars
18. Gina
19. What Will Mary Say
20. The Sweetheart Tree
21. On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
22. The Look of Love
23. A Time for Us

Disc 2
24. I'm Coming Home
25. Life Is a Song Worth Singing
26. 99 Miles from L.A.
27. What I Did for Love
28. When a Child Is Born
29. Too Much, Too Little, Too Late (with Deniece Williams)
30. Begin the Beguine
31. Memory
32. Friends in Love (with Dionne Warwick)
33. Brazil (Aquarela do Brasil)
34. Prelude to a Kiss
35. What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?
36. Let Your Heart Remember
37. Unbreak My Heart
38. Because You Loved Me
39. Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries (featuring Forever Plaid)
40. On Broadway

Set list: Johnny Mathis

On 11 May, I went to see Johnny Mathis in concert at the beautiful Louisville Palace Theatre. For those unfamiliar, the Palace is a gorgeous venue, and it's definitely worth attending something there if ever you're in town. Mathis's voice has held up amazingly well after all these years. It's rare that anyone can continue performing for six decades, but it's rarer still that they can give the caliber of performance Mathis gave. My only regret is that we didn't get even more of his songs, but his beautiful voice and performances made up for any disappointment in that respect, and for any awkwardness caused by being notably younger than 99% of the crowd. Before the intermission, we were treated to the comedic stylings of Gary Mule Deer, which were amusing enough, although his set mainly consisted of old jokes which I've heard several times or been forwarded via the Internet. Eh, whatever. Mathis made up for any of his shortcomings too.

Some of these I'm labeling as medleys, but it's not so much that as the end of one complete song segueing into the beginning of another in some cases. This should still give the basic idea, anyway.

1. Medley: Two for the Road/Charade/The Days of Wine and Roses/Moon River
2. It's Not for Me to Say
3. Chances Are
4. Gina
5. It's All in the Game
6. Medley: Let Me Be the One (the Nichols-Williams one)/Let Go (a song I'd not known before that I greatly enjoyed)
7. I'm on the Outside Looking In
8. When I Fall in Love
9. Misty
10. To the Ends of the Earth
---Gary Mule Deer, Intermission---
11. Pure Imagination
12. Medley from Kismet (his first Broadway show): Sands of Time/Baubles, Bangles, and Beads/Stranger in Paradise
13. Secret Love
14. You Make Me Feel Brand New
15. Walk On By
16. 99 Miles from L.A. (didn't expect this, but he did an amazing job with it)
17. The Twelfth of Never
18. A selection of Portuguese songs - couldn't say what, but it ended with an English rendition of "Brazil"
19. You'll Never Know