PRE-ORDER FROM AMAZON.COM

From bus driver to national treasure, London-born Matt Monro’s success story is one for the ages.  From his humble beginnings, the man that even Sinatra effusively praised would go on to become a global superstar.  In his time, the crooner, with his rich baritone, sold upwards of 150 million records; worked with the likes of John Barry, Quincy Jones, Sir George Martin, Nelson Riddle and Michel Legrand; and released 13 top 50 U.K. singles.  Now, a new chapter of the Matt Monro story has been written.  On November 1, UMC will release Stranger In Paradise / The Lost New York Sessions a 2-CD combination best-of compilation and lost album.

Following his work in the U.K. on Parlophone, Monro signed with the U.S.-based Capitol Records.  Under the new roof, he recorded nine albums in four years, including pop collections, interpretations of songs from the silver screen, and more.  In 1966, Monro recorded a clutch of Broadway tunes and possible singles in New York with a small ensemble.  Without his knowledge, the tapes were sent out to Hollywood, where strings and brass were overdubbed.  Monro wasn’t pleased with the result and the tapes sat on the shelves for two years before Capitol finally released them – overdubs and all – as Invitation to Broadway.  A recent dig through the vaults unearthed that original, undubbed, 16-song session featuring intimate versions of classics from Hello, Dolly!, Fiddler on the Roof, Mame, Man of La Mancha, and more.  Those tracks and four alternate takes make up Disc One of Stranger in Paradise, finally presented as Monro wanted them to be, more than 50 years after their recording.

Disc Two of Stranger in Paradise offers a whopping 27 tracks, collecting his best-known tacks and most successful sides including “From Russia with Love,” “Portrait of My Love,” and “My Kind of Girl.”  Though most of the tracks use the 2010 versions of the songs, three recordings have received new mixes by longtime Monro champion Richard Moore at Mint Audio Restoration, whose previous releases in collaboration with Matt’s daughter Michele Monro include Alternate Monro, The Rarities Collection, and The George Martin Years.  (You can read our interviews with Michele and Richard here and here!)

“The original mix of ‘Everybody’s Talkin’ suffered from a badly set compressor,”  Moore writes on a popular music forum. “So the new mix from the original session reel has rectified this.  ‘Pretty Polly’ in its 1960’s stereo mix (first issued on The Complete Singles Collection) had a stereo delay added to the strings and everything else panned to the centre.  For this set, it was remixed from the original 3-track tape to a more traditional stereo mix […] The four-track session tape for ‘The Music Played’ no longer exists, however a true stereo mix of the backing track was made for use on the Spanish language version of the song. New software has allowed the separation of Matt’s vocal from the mono mix, which has now been mixed with the backing to create the first stereo mix of the song.”

The result?  A collection of Matt Monro favorites that sound better than ever, alongside an album that’s been lost for over a half-century.  If you’re a fan of Matt Monro’s beautiful baritone (and, really, how could you not be?) then you owe it to your ears to pick up this wide-ranging, 47-track set.

Stranger in Paradise / The Lost New York Sessions is due November 1 from UMC.  You can place your pre-order with the links below!