New Eydie Gorme Collection Celebrates Her Career, Premieres Unreleased Songs
In a career spanning six decades, the late Eydie Gorme was a leading light of the Great American Songbook, employing versatile voice and powerful belt on record and on stage both solo and with her husband of over 55 years, Steve Lawrence. Now, Lawrence is paying tribute to her immense legacy in song with a new collection. An American Treasure presents 34 solo recordings by Gorme on three discs – 12 tracks per disc of The Hits and Steve’s Favorites, and 10 previously unreleased tracks on the third CD.
The first disc of this set, The Hits, samples some of Gorme’s charting singles; her U.S. singles chart career extended from 1954 to 1976. Among the songs represented is a famous pair from 1966: Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane’s “What Did I Have That I Don’t Have” from their score to On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, and Jerry Herman’s “If He Walked Into My Life” from Mame. For her stunning version of the latter ballad introduced onstage by Angela Lansbury, Gorme received a Grammy Award in 1967 for Best Female Vocal Performance. The Hits also includes her final charting Adult Contemporary single, Marvin Hamlisch and Ed Kleban’s “What I Did for Love” from A Chorus Line, and Eydie’s biggest pop hit, the infectious “Blame It on the Bossa Nova.” The Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil tune went all the way to the Top 10 pop chart in 1963. This disc is rounded out by other favorites from Cole Porter (“Every Time We Say Goodbye”), George and Ira Gershwin (“But Not for Me,” “The Man I Love”), Stephen Sondheim (“Send in the Clowns”), and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (“My Funny Valentine”).
Steve Lawrence selected his own favorite performances of Eydie’s for the second disc of this set. Two tracks which “bubbled under” the Billboard Hot 100 appear here: Ervin Drake’s “The Friendliest Thing,” from the Broadway musical What Makes Sammy Run? (in which Steve starred) and the Italian pop tune “Softly as I Leave You,” also famously recorded by Matt Monro and the Lawrences’ friend Frank Sinatra. “Don’t Go to Strangers,” the title track of Eydie’s 1966 Columbia LP, also appears here in addition to songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein (“Hello, Young Lovers”), Cole Porter (“Always True to You in My Fashion”) and Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog (“God Bless the Child”).
The final disc is certainly of the most interest to longtime fans and collectors, premiering ten tracks from the vaults. These selections are primarily standards, including Richard Adler and Jerry Ross’ “Hey There” from The Pajama Game, and the Gershwins’ “I Got Rhythm” as introduced by Ethel Merman in Girl Crazy. Other familiar titles include the Billie Holiday classic “Lover Man,” the Ella Fitzgerald hit “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” Rodgers and Hart’s “With a Song in My Heart,” and The Wizard of Oz’s timeless “Over the Rainbow.”
Eydie Gorme’s An American Treasure is available directly through SteveandEydie.com and, of course, will also be available at Amazon.com at the link below! Hopefully this release will lead to subsequent vault outings from both Lawrence and Gorme. All proceeds of its sale go directly to The Lawrence Foundation, the charity established by Steve and Eydie in 1972 which helped build the first pre-natal care unit in California at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Today, the Foundation supports research in cancer, Alzheimer’s, muscular dystrophy, pediatric AIDS, juvenile diabetes and more. You can order the collection below!
Eydie Gorme, An American Treasure (GL Music, 2015) (Amazon U.S.)
CD 1: The Hits
- What Did I Have That I Don’t Have (Cash Box 138/Billboard AC No. 17, 1966)
- Every Time We Say Goodbye
- But Not for Me
- If He Walked Into My Life (Billboard “Bubbling Under” No. 120/AC No. 5, 1966)
- How About Me
- What I Did for Love (Billboard AC No. 23, 1976)
- The Man I Love
- As Long As He Needs Me
- Send in the Clowns
- My Funny Valentine
- Blame It on the Bossa Nova (Cash Box 6/Billboard Hot 100 No. 7, R&B No. 16, 1963)
- Yes, My Darling Daughter (No. 10 U.K., 1962)
CD 2: Steve’s Favorites
- You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You
- Don’t Go to Strangers (Billboard AC No. 36, 1965)
- Hello Young Lovers
- God Bless the Child
- I Remember You
- The Friendliest Thing (Billboard “Bubbling Under” No. 133, 1964)
- ‘Round Midnight
- Always True to You in My Fashion
- I Wish You Love
- After You’ve Gone (B-side of “Do I Hear a Waltz,” 1965)
- What’s Good About Goodbye (B-side of “Softly as I Leave You,” 1967)
- Softly as I Leave You (Billboard “Bubbling Under” No. 117/AC No. 30, 1967)
CD 3: Never Before Released
- Some of These Days
- Lover Man
- I Got Rhythm
- With a Song in My Heart
- Hey There
- A-Tisket, A-Tasket
- Body and Soul
- More Than You Know
- Jim
- Over the Rainbow
You Might Also Like
1 thought on “New Eydie Gorme Collection Celebrates Her Career, Premieres Unreleased Songs”
Leave a Comment
I bought this set when it was first available from steveandeydie.com. There are no details in the liner notes about the third disc of previously unreleased recordings. All I can figure is that they’re from the 60s, maybe around the time of her Sound of Music album. In the course of working on Real Gone’s distribution of this set, have you learned any details about these unreleased recordings? I’m specifically wondering what year they were recorded and if in fact they were all recorded at the same time and intended for release together as an album.