Andrews Sisters - Greatest Hits of the 20th Century

Album Review

One of the maddening aspects of the Andrews Sisters' CD catalog is that there is no way to get a single cohesive body of discs that encompasses all of their best work, or even the best of their extant work. At 60 songs, this three-CD set is the most comprehensive set ever issued on the trio, with 42 of their hits from Decca Records, including every song that reached the number one and number two spots. It offers 14 more songs than appear on MCA's double-CD Their All-Time Greatest Hits, but this set is missing 18 of the group's Top Ten singles, and doesn't even contain everything that's on MCA's double-CD collection; among those tracks not present here are "Well All Right (Tonight's the Night)," "Aurora," "Ti-Pi-Tin," "Shortnin' Bread," "Tico Tico," and "Jealous" (and one should note that even the MCA double-CD doesn't have several choice songs that appear on the same label's separate 50th anniversary volumes). On the other hand, this set contains such unique tracks as "You're a Lucky Fellow Mr. Smith" (which the Andrews Sister introduced, along with "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," in the movie Buck Privates), "I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)," and "Cool Water," as well as a wide range of their collaborations with Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Les Paul, Danny Kaye, Ernest Tubb, and Carmen Miranda. The thematic and musical groupings into which the songs are divided generally seem both arbitrary and predictable, and afford the listener no chance to appreciate the trio's advancement across a decade of music-making. Still the range of songs and sounds is impressive, and, if one can get past the fairly high list price on this mail-order item, it can be three hours of fun listening, but, unfortunately, not three perfect hours — one will still need those other compilations from MCA, which have advantages in price and content. The sound is a match for the work on MCA's own reissues, incidentally, and the annotation is reasonably complete, with notes referring to each of the 60 songs.