John Gary Albums (6)
'The John Gary Carnegie Hall Concert'
Release Date 6/22/2004
Tracks 20
Label Collectables
See Album Tracklist and Review
'Sings Cole Porter'
Release Date 12/1/1995
Tracks 16
Label Audiophile
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
On his third RCA solo album, So Tenderly, in the summer of 1964, John Gary let some of his Celtic influences show on such songs as Lerner and Loewe's "Come to Me, Bend to Me." He then made a duet album of show music with Ann-Margret (David Merrick Presents Hits from His Broadway Hits) and a holiday album (The John Gary Christmas Album) for release in the fall before spending three days in late September really giving his Celtic muse a workout on the songs for the Irish-themed album A Little Bit of Heaven. Gary's dramatic tenor was made for songs like "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen," which allowed him to indulge his tendency to drift upwards until he had reached his falsetto voice without any obvious break. He did not sing the familiar Irish airs with the emotional fervor of John McCormack, nor with the paternalistic tone of Bing Crosby, to name perhaps the two best-known practitioners of Irish song in the 20th century, but instead steered a middle course that treated the material somewhat dispassionately, as if it had become a particular ethnic breed of art song. While the approach was not designed to produce either a tear or a smile, it served the songs well, rendering them as compositions that were also appropriate vehicles for Gary's vocal flights. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
John Gary and his conductor, Marty Gold, chose to emphasize the dramatic nature of Gary's rangy, full-bodied tenor on his third RCA Victor album, So Tenderly. Although the album was released in the mid-summer of 1964, it might easily have been billed as a St. Patrick's Day collection, since there was a distinctly Celtic feeling to much of the material, starting with "Danny Boy," but also including Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's "Come to Me, Bend to Me" from the 1947 Broadway musical Brigadoon and Gary's own co-composition with Robert MacGimsey, "Brown Eyed Baby Boy." Gary's readings, backed by Gold's forceful, yet supportive strings, also frequently gave the material the tone of art song as much as pop music, so it was good that the singer could also show off his comic side in the novelty "Ten Girls Ago." For the most part, however, this was serious, intensely romantic stuff that Gary and Gold collected from such surprising sources as the 1954 film The Glass Slipper (Bronislau Kaper and Helen Deutsch's "Take My Love") and Lerner and Kurt Weill's 1950 Broadway musical Love Life ("Here I'll Stay"). Gary's healthy sales with his first two RCA albums, Catch a Rising Star and Encore, may have encouraged the singer to take a left turn toward the concert hall with this collection, and, though his sales fell off somewhat, his audience was largely willing to follow him into more sophisticated territory; the album peaked with the Top 40 and spent more than six months in the charts. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
As its title suggests, Encore, John Gary's second RCA album, was a deliberate follow-up to Catch a Rising Star, as it was released only four months after his first album, while that LP was still high in the charts. And it succeeded in that regard, peaking even a little higher and spending almost a year in the charts itself. But it was a slightly more formal, self-conscious collection, its material and musical approach somewhat more conventional. Only the lead-off track, "Tender Is the Night," the Academy Award-nominated title song from the 1962 film, and "(It's Been) Grand Knowing You," from the 1963 Broadway musical She Loves Me, were contemporary, the rest of the songs dating back as far as 1927, the publication date of "Ol' Man River," given an unusually up-tempo treatment, though most of them came from the 1950s. Several were drawn from the repertoires of other RCA performers -- "Anywhere I Wander" from Julius LaRosa, "Melodie D'Amour (Melody of Love)" from the Ames Brothers, "If" from Perry Como -- making you wonder if the company controlled the publishing on those titles and was encouraging their use. Gary repeated some of the familiar effects from his celebrated label debut, such as the extensive use of his falsetto voice on "Anywhere I Wander" and the Caribbean feel of "Melodie D'Amour." But in general, he kept to a more limited range and a dramatic interpretation of the lyrics, and the arrangements were traditional orchestral ones. If Catch a Rising Star was an album that attempted, successfully, to attract attention to the versatility of Gary's vocal talent, Encore was one that tried to consolidate his newfound renown by making him sound like a more traditional pop singer than he had seemed at first. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
John Gary was almost 31 years old when RCA Victor records released his major-label debut, Catch a Rising Star, its Top Ten success and year-plus in the charts making him an "overnight sensation." But though he might have seemed a little long in the tooth, he had actually been a child prodigy who had been knocking around the entertainment business since he played a singing newsboy in the James Cagney film The Time of Your Life in 1948. But by the time he was ready to make his mark as a pop singer in the mid-'50s, all the record companies wanted to sign was rock & roll acts, and he was only able to attract the attention of small independents until RCA finally decided the rock & roll fad was over -- just before the start of the British Invasion. Catch a Rising Star seemed designed to showcase Gary's multi-octave voice, with its soaring tenor that crossed over into falsetto without any break, rather than to give him a hit record, since the songs were mostly familiar. He covered material associated with Tony Bennett and Nat "King" Cole, presented his own versions of some '50s and '60s hits, and displayed considerable versatility going from country tunes like Hank Williams' "Your Cheatin' Heart" to the Caribbean-style "Yellow Bird," which sounded like the sort of thing his labelmate Harry Belafonte was known for. In some respects, he resembled Johnny Ray, but without the hysterical overstatement. His individual approach was best appreciated on "Unchained Melody," which he began with only an acoustic guitar for accompaniment and deliberately undersang, in contrast to the many over-the-top versions of the well-known song. Such performances set Gary apart from his competitors on the supper club circuit and seemed to bode an important new figure in sophisticated pop singing. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
