Published on Jul 5, 1998
We’ll start this review with two admissions. Admission number
one: I am not that familiar with Louis Prima. In fact, the last
time I had heard him was back when I was about 13 years old, and
The Disney Channel was added to basic cable in our household. A
program, “DTV,” played “That Old Black Magic” done by Prima and
another singer with cartoons playing in the background. Obviously,
it’s been a long time since I saw that video, so I plead total
ignorance on Prima.
Admission number two: Despite the fact I once owned the
Mary Poppins soundtrack as a child, notwithstanding the fact
this was once the most popular soundtrack of all time, I don’t
understand the fascination with the music from this movie. Burl
Ives covered some of the songs from this movie (on an album we
reviewed a few weeks ago), and now I’m presented with
Let’s Fly With Mary Poppins, an album of songs from the
movie performed by Prima with his wife Gia Maione. (If this isn’t
enough, I now have the re-issued soundtrack of
Mary Poppins sent to me from Disney to review. Guess I’d
better rent the video.)
This album (part of Disney’s
Archive Collection reissue series), first released in 1965,
does show off Prima’s scat singing well, such as on “Chim Chim
Cher-ee,” a song that builds up from a slow, gentle start into a
more jazzy version. Likewise, “Stay Awake” shows off a more subdued
side to Prima’s vocals. To Maione’s credit, songs like “Feed The
Birds” and “Sister Suffragette” demonstrate her vocal capabilities
well (though she should have lost the Cockney accent on “Sister
Suffragette” – she only used it for part of the song anyway).
For all its strengths, though,
Let’s Fly With Mary Poppins has some flaws. Why two Italian
versions of songs were included on this album I have no clue, and
the alternative versions of “Stay Awake” (scat-jazz in Italian? I
don’t think so) and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” (brother,
don’t try running
that through the spell-checker) could have been dropped.
(Then again, this disc only clocks in at 27 minutes, and the tracks
do pad it out a little more.) And while “I Love To Laugh” is
not a bad track, the forced laughter of Maione is just annoying –
you can tell it’s faked, which makes it unbearable. Oh, well.
The few duets between Prima and Maione are spotty. “Jolly
Holiday” is a decent enough number (in which they have to partially
re-write the lyrics to fit each other’s names in), but
“Supercali….” oh, whatever… and “The Perfect Nanny” are nothing
special.
Let’s Fly With Mary Poppins is a disc that will most likely
please the diehard
Mary Poppins fans, but the disc itself does have limited
appeal – even for fans of Prima’s work.