Hal Kemp & His Orchestra - Hits Collection 1930-41 (2020)

Hal Kemp was one of the most consistently successful and prolific hitmakers among the many popular bandleaders whose orchestras played the “sweet” style of music which dominated the radio airwaves during the 1930s in the USA, their repertoire not only encompassing dance band music, but vocal renditions of some of the hot new songs of the day emerging from Tin Pan Alley, along with compositions from the stage shows and movies which the Great American Songbook writers like Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hart were creating. This excellent-value 45-track 2-CD collection completely comprises the biggest of his 58 career hits on the Brunswick and Victor labels before his untimely death in 1940 at the age of 38 in a road accident. It features the No. 1s “There’s A Small Hotel”, “When I’m With You”, “This Year’s Kisses”, “Where or When”, and his other Top 3 hits “There Ought To Be A Moonlight Saving Time”, “Shuffle Off To Buffalo”, “For All We Know”, “With All My Heart”, “A Star Fell Out Of Heaven”, and “The Touch Of Your Lips”. Featured vocalists include Skinny Ennis, Maxine Grey, Bob Allen, Saxie Dowell, Nan Wynn and Janet Blair. It's a substantial, nostalgic and evocative overview of the hit career of a highly successful orchestra leader, with early versions of some of the great songs of the era.