“I heard you on the wireless back in ’52…”
This long-overdue 22-tracker (rather oddly, everyone’s festive fave, The Christmas Song, is listed as a ‘bonus track’ and isn’t mentioned on the album’s back inlay at all) marks the first collection that pays particular attention to the classic Cole cuts to have gained a new lease of life in contemporary films (Mona Lisa) and television commercials (Let’s Face The Music And Dance, Let There Be Love and, currently, On The Street Where You Live).
Though with many hit singles conspicuous by their absence (including nine of Nat’s 14 UK Top Ten entries), one wonders why EMI couldn’t have really entered into the Christmas spirit and made it a double.
Steve Pafford
First published: Record Collector, December 1999 (though today is indeed the 99th anniversary of Nat’s birth)
