Joanie Sommers - Come Alive! - The Complete Columbia Recordings (2013) @ 320

 Review by Steve Leggett

She was young and pretty and looked like the girl next door, and she was just 18 when she signed with Warner Bros. in 1959, who quickly paired her on a couple of singles with teen favorite Edd "Kookie" Byrnes of the then-popular television series 77 Sunset Strip, but Joanie Sommers was no teen idol, although her biggest hit and signature tune, "Johnny Get Angry," from 1962, certainly fell into that market. Sommers could really sing, and her strengths fell to Broadway tunes and jazz. Ironically, her biggest claim to fame all these years later is a series of commercials she did for Pepsi-Cola in the early '60s, when her voice and look made her "the voice of a generation," at least on television, where she was a guest on countless talk and entertainment shows. She left Warner Bros. and signed with Columbia Records in 1966, releasing one album, Come Alive! (the title came from one of her successful jingles for Pepsi), and a handful of singles for the label before she stepped back from the business and concentrated on her family and children, only recording on occasion after that. This set collects that lone Columbia album and her subsequent non-album singles from that period (including one of her Pepsi jingles), and it's mostly covers of popular show tunes of the day. The real standout is her wonderful version of Hal David and Burt Bacharach's "Alfie," which was a Top Ten hit in 1966 even with stiff competition from Cher and Dionne Warwick, who also released charting versions.

01. Joanie Sommers - You'd Better Love Me  (2:19)

02. Joanie Sommers - The Shadow Of Your Smile  (2:45)

03. Joanie Sommers - I'm All Smiles  (2:26)

04. Joanie Sommers - Girl Talk  (2:48)

05. Joanie Sommers - Sunday In New York  (2:23)

06. Joanie Sommers - You Take What Comes Along  (2:47)

07. Joanie Sommers - Call Me  (2:35)

08. Joanie Sommers - Watch What Happens  (3:15)

09. Joanie Sommers - Too Late Now  (2:55)

10. Joanie Sommers - A Wonderful Day Like Today  (2:37)

11. Joanie Sommers - It Had To Be You  (3:03)

12. Joanie Sommers - You've Got Possibilities  (2:13)

13. Joanie Sommers - Never Throw Your Dreams Away  (2:37)

14. Joanie Sommers - Alfie  (3:04)

15. Joanie Sommers - It Doesn't Matter Anymore  (2:18)

16. Joanie Sommers - Take A Broken Heart  (2:24)

17. Joanie Sommers - Try To See It My Way  (2:16)

18. Joanie Sommers - Let It Be Now  (2:17)

19. Joanie Sommers - Love Song  (2:08)

20. Joanie Sommers - Never, Never  (1:58)

21. Joanie Sommers - You Take What Comes Along (Italian Version Mono)  (2:46)

22. Joanie Sommers - Alfie (Italian Version Mono)  (3:05)

23. Joanie Sommers - Come Alive! (Pepsi Jingle)  (1:02)

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