Kay Starr: A Rising Starr - Early Recordings 2CD

Before Kay Starr became one of the defining voices of 1950s American popular music — before Wheel of Fortune made her a household name on both sides of the Atlantic — she was already something remarkable: a teenage singer of prodigious natural ability, moving with ease between jazz, blues, country, and pop at a time when such versatility was genuinely rare. A Rising Starr, compiled by the respected Jasmine Records archive label, gathers the finest of those early recordings across two generously filled discs, presenting the full breadth of her talent in performances that crackle with the energy of a singer who knew, even then, exactly what she was doing.

The range across these fifty-plus tracks is extraordinary. Disc one opens with the swinging confidence of Love With a Capital You and moves through blues territory with Sharecroppin' Blues, the jazz standard What a Difference a Day Made, and the gospel-tinged Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen, before closing with the Dixieland exuberance of Dixieland Band. Disc two is equally wide-ranging: Love Me or Leave Me, Stormy Weather, Honeysuckle Rose, and I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm sit alongside lesser-known gems that reward the attentive listener with the same warmth and authority that would later make Starr a star of the first magnitude.

These are recordings that document not merely a career in its early stages, but a voice in the process of becoming itself — and that process, captured here with the care and expertise that Jasmine consistently brings to its archive releases, is a genuinely compelling thing to witness.

Track Listing

CD 1

1. Love With a Capital You
2. Baby Me
3. Sharecroppin' Blues
4. If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight)
5. Come Out, Come Out
6. Wherever You Are
7. What a Difference a Day Made
8. Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall
9. You Always Hurt the One You Love
10. If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight) [Alt. Take]
11. Stormy Weather
12. Flyin' Too High
13. My Future Just Passed
14. What Can I Say After I Say I'm Sorry
15. Betcha I Getcha
16. Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen
17. Ain't Misbehavin'
18. Honeysuckle Rose
19. What a Difference a Day Made [Alt. Take]
20. Should I
21. Dixieland Band
22. There's a Lull in My Life
23. Honey
24. Don't Meddle in My Moon
25. I Ain't Gonna Cry

CD 2

1. Love Me or Leave Me
2. Sweet Lorraine
3. It's the Talk of the Town
4. Stormy Weather
5. Baby Won't You Please Come Home
6. Confessin' (I Love You)
7. Honeysuckle Rose
8. Of Me
9. What's the Matter With Me
10. Everybody At...
11. If I Could Just Get Together
12. I Stay
13. Far Do Not
14. Just Goodnight For Me
15. Blackout
16. Of When
17. I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
18. It's What-cha Do With Whatcha Got
19. A Woman Always Understands
20. Pretty Mary
21. Please Love Me
22. Them There Eyes
23. The Lonesome Gal in Town
24. If I Couldn't Be With You
25. You've Got to See Mama Every Night

Product Specifications

• Artist: Kay Starr
• Label: Jasmine Records
• Year: 1997
• Format: 2 × Audio CD
• Genre: Jazz / Blues / Pop / Country / 1940s–1950s
• Weight: 254 g (8.96 oz)
• Dimensions (double jewel case): 142 mm × 125 mm × 20 mm (5.6 in × 4.9 in × 0.8 in)
• Barcode: 5019869033725
• Condition: Preloved