Keely Smith - Oldies Selection: Be My Love (2021)

A fine traditional pop vocalist, Keely Smith was best known as the longtime duet partner of the late singer/trumpeter Louis Prima. However, Smith was also a talented solo performer, on par with the leading female vocalists of the 1950s. With Prima she took the "straight man" role in their raucous, just-this-side-of-parody blends of jazz, jump blues, and Italian pop on records like Las Vegas Prima Style and in their Vegas-oriented shows. They also scored a major success when their 1958 cover of Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen's "That Old Black Magic" hit the Top 20 and garnered the duo the first ever Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Vocal Group. On her own, Smith recorded a string of well-received albums and scored a hit with "I Wish You Love" in 1957. After divorcing Prima, she signed with Frank Sinatra's Reprise Records and released a series of sophisticated albums featuring musical direction by Nelson Riddle and Ernie Freeman. She also returned to the charts in 1965 with the Top 20 British single "You're Breakin' My Heart." After a period away from the spotlight, during which time she raised her daughters, she made a comeback in the 1980s. Over the next 30 years until her death in 2017, Smith recorded a handful of albums for Concord and performed often.