The vault has finally been opened!  Sony Music U.K. has confirmed a release date and track listing for singing legend Doris Day’s long-awaited My Heart, on which your humble correspondent first reported in August 2010 and revisited back in November!  Thanks to the fine folks at Doris Day Tribute for spreading this news!  My Heart marks Doris’ first album of original studio material in some seventeen years, since The Love Album, and it features a number of tracks that will be of interest to the Beach Boys fan and collector communities.  Day’s 29^th studio album, My Heart is set for release on September 5 in the U.K. with an American release hopefully to follow.

UPDATE 11/29: That American release is almost here!  Doris Day’s own production company, Arwin Productions, drops My Heart next Tuesday, December 6, in the United States.  And the Arwin release will include a special U.S.-only bonus track, “Stewball.”  A traditional tune as arranged by Terry Melcher, “Stewball” was recorded circa 1985 for the Doris Day’s Best Friends television program, and it now makes its first commercial release anywhere! 

My Heart made chart history earlier this year when it entered at No. 9, making Day, 87, the oldest artist to score a new Top 10 entry in the U.K. pop chart.  Dame Vera Lynn topped the British chart in 2009 at 92, but Lynn’s We’ll Meet Again was exclusively a retrospective, whereas My Heart premieres “new” studio material.

Some details have changed since the initial announcement of the album, but Day’s sentiment in assembling it remains true: “These songs all mean so much to me…They bring back happy memories of my friends who appeared on TV with me, my animal friends, and most of all, my [late] son Terry.”  The Terry of whom she speaks is Terry Melcher, the producer and songwriter behind hits for The Byrds and The Beach Boys as well as some of Doris’ most notable recordings including “Move Over Darling.”  Though Melcher died in 2004, some of his unheard productions recorded in the 1980s for the Doris Day’s Best Friends television series will be premiered on My Heart.  (Click here for the full list!)

Eight songs in all are appearing for the first time.  Four of those tracks were written by Melcher in tandem with Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, the team once known to pop listeners as Bruce and Terry.  These include the title song, “The Way I Dreamed It” and a duo of songs that may be familiar to listeners, though not in these recordings.  “Heaven Tonight,” which in Day’s version will be promoted as the album’s single, was recorded by Captain and Tennille, also longtime Beach Boys associates.  The Beach Boys themselves performed “Happy Endings” with Little Richard, from the 1988 Whoopi Goldberg vehicle The Telephone.

Hit the jump for the updated run-down on the rest of the contents of My Heart, including remarks from Bruce Johnston about the album’s production!  plus the complete track listing with discographical information and pre-order link!

Three more classic pop staples get the silky Doris Day treatment: John Sebastian’s “Daydream,” Johnston’s “Disney Girls” and Billy Preston’s “You Are So Beautiful,” said by some to actually have been written by Dennis Wilson.  There’s one unreleased track that doesn’t come from the 1980s sessions, and it may even be more exciting.  It’s Day’s 1971 version of Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner’s delicious “Hurry! It’s Lovely Up Here,” the big, brassy introduction to the character of Daisy Gamble in the musical On a Clear Day, You Can See Forever.  Doris’ version originates from television’s The Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff Special.  It will make the opening number to My Heart, too, and no better choice could have been made!

Supplementing these eight never-before-released tracks are four standards personally selected from Day’s catalogue by the singer for inclusion on this set.  These include “Ohio” from Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s musical Wonderful Town and more recently reprised on Glee, “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” “My Buddy” and “My One and Only Love,” from her Duet album with Andre Previn.

Bruce Johnston exclusively spoke to Endless Summer Quarterly about his contributions to My Heart.  Johnston clarified to David Beard that he originally co-produced five of the album’s tracks, but producer Ted Carfrae (David Cassidy, Engelbert Humperdinck) was enlisted to remix the tracks for My Heart.   “Terry Melcher and I are the original producers of ‘The Way I Dreamed It’ (it really was a simple unmixed demo and very unfinished) and ‘Happy Endings’ (also an unfinished demo)…As there was very little music budget for [Day’s] TV show, the songs were recorded in the simplest and least expensive form (a lot of cheesy synths were on these TV recordings…ouch!  It’s a good thing these TV tracks were upgraded by Ted Carfrae.”  He continued, “On the other hand, ‘My Heart,’ ‘Heaven Tonight’ and ‘Disney Girls’ are the only three fully-produced tracks (recorded and final-mixed)  that Terry and I completed…Again, we are the original producers of these recorded and ‘final’-mixed tracks, but sadly, our three tracks were recently remixed after the fact.”  For Johnston’s fascinating, full interview, check out Issue 93 of ESQ.

While it would have been wonderful to see more tracks released from the 1985 sessions, the tracks here are choice, and the complete album should make for wonderfully diverse listening.  Any new music  from the former Ms. Kappelhoff (recently heard sounding vibrant on an interview with Jonathan Schwartz of WNYC-FM and Sirius XM’s Siriusly Sinatra) is cause for celebration.  My Heart arrived in stores in the U.K. on September 5 and hits American shores next Tuesday, December 6! 

Doris Day, My Heart (Sony Music (U.K. Edition)/Arwin Productions (U.S. Edition), 2011)

1. Hurry, It’s Lovely Up Here (Alan Jay Lerner/Burton Lane)
2. Daydream (John Sebastian)
3. The Way I Dreamed It (Bruce Johnston/Terry Melcher)
4. Heaven Tonight (Bruce Johnston/Terry Melcher)
5. My One and Only Love (Robert Mellin/Guy Wood)
6. My Heart  (Bruce Johnston/Terry Melcher)
7. You Are So Beautiful (Billy Preston/Bruce Fisher)
8. Life Is Just A Bowl of Cherries (Ray Henderson/Les Brown)
9. Disney Girls (Bruce Johnston)
10. Stewball (Traditional, arranged by Terry Melcher) (*)
11. My Buddy (Walter Donaldson/Gus Kahn)
12. Happy Endings (Bruce Johnston/Terry Melcher)
    (Sung by Terry with spoken introduction by Doris Day)
13. Ohio (Betty Comden/Adolph Green/Leonard Bernstein)

Tracks 1-4, 6-7, 9, 10, 12 previously unreleased
Track 5 from Doris Day and Andre Previn, Duet, Columbia CL-1752, 1962
Track 8 from The Love Album, Concord 3104, 1994
Track 11 from I’ll See You In My Dreams, Columbia CL 6198, 1951
Track 13 from Show Time, Columbia CL 1470, 1960

(*) denotes U.S.-only bonus track