The Canadian Sweethearts - Side By Side / Pop & Country (Expanded Edition) (1967/2019)

The Canadian husband-and-wife team of Bob Regan (aka Bob Fredrickson) (mandolin/fiddle/guitar/harmonica/pedal steel) and Lucille Starr (aka Lucille Savoie) (vocals) gained significant notice in the late 1950s and 1960s in their native homeland. Side by Side (1968) their Epic Records debut finds them working appropriately enough in Nashville, TN. The project yielded a concept album of sorts as half the platter contains a healthy sampling of country and western selections, while the other is an eclectic aggregate of more traditional pop tunes. Several years earlier Starr's vibrato was undoubtedly helpful when she lent Bea Benaderet ('Cousin' Pearl Bodine) her yodel on the Beverly Hillbillies TV show for the first season episode Jed Plays Solomon. Needless to say, here Starr's contributions are far less verbose. In fact, her versatility is impressive on the heartfelt "Canadian Sunset," Cole Porter's "True Love and a duet with Regan on "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You." Regan aptly demonstrates his stringed mastery, ranging from the biting and expressive pedal steel licks gliding through "Heartaches by the Number," to the precise picking heard on the jaunty "Looking Back to See." Although arguably lightweight, if not anachronistic, the cover of "Winchester Cathedral" boasts a fuzzed-out electric guitar atop Starr's freewheeling vocal. Closing the effort in much the same way it began is another amicable and airy mid-tempo outing, this time the title song, "Side by Side." The pair affectionately play off of each other in a way reminiscent of the special union existing between Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. In 2004, Collectors' Choice Music issued Side by Side (1967) and Starr's own Lonely Street (1969) on to a single CD, adding no less than eight non-LP titles that were previously available only on a handful of 45's.