Dean Martin Lush Years / Relaxin' CD

This budget-priced twofer features the master of the laid-back croon in a variety of musical settings, from the big band sound of "Who Was That Lady?" to the softly romantic "Love Me My Love." Apart from Martin's unchallenged mastery of the middle-of-the-road ballad, his understated vocal technique is also deceptively authoritative, as evidenced on the rollicking blues number "Cheatin' on Me," where he sounds both unperturbed and obviously in command.
After Dean Martin moved from Capitol Records to Reprise Records (then run by his pal Frank Sinatra) in 1961, Capitol still had plenty of material on Dino left in its vaults that either had been released only on out of print singles and EPs or had never come out at all, and between 1965 and 1967 its subsidiary label Tower Records put out four budget-priced albums assembled from this rare material. Since these LPs weren't advertised as featuring rare recordings, they came and went fairly quickly, and have been much sought after by Martin collectors until Collectors' Choice Music reissued them as a pair of two-fer CDs in 2005. The Lush Years and Relaxin' were the first two albums in the quartet, and on this disc they make for a stronger set than Happy in Love and Dino -- Like Never Before, thanks to notably stronger material. As its title suggests, The Lush Years features ten performances high on polish and classy orchestration, though there's a welcome degree of variety in the mood and tempo of the songs and Martin's vocals deliver the goods on all tracks. (The album also features two rare tunes of special interest to fans of Martin's movies -- songs tied into the films Career and Rio Bravo.) Relaxin' promises to deliver Dino in a mellow mood and does just that, but there are some pleasing up-tempo melodies added for good measure, and Martin's rich, easygoing vocal style hits the spot regardless of surroundings. Fans of Dean Martin's Capitol-era recordings will enjoy this look into the nooks and crannies of his back catalog (especially given the rarity of some of these tracks), and the consistent strength of Dino's vocals shows just how good (and underappreciated) an artist he really was. ~ Mark Deming