Matt Frankie Laine an absolute American singing legend is given the Bear Family box set treatment with "That Lucky Old Sun" being the first of three which will be issued over the following two years. If you are reading this review there is a good chance that you will be familar with Frankie's music and all its diversity and in this set "The Lucky Old Sun" the time span that it encompasses is from 1944 with his very first recordings at Goldseal and Beltone ( 3 in total) with all his Atlas recordings (17 in total) and finishing up with all his Mercury output right up 1951. The set was prepped by Tony Cooper and Richard Weize the founder of Bear Family records with another twenty people involved at various stages with Frankie Laine himself assisting and adding his own personal photos for the acompanying book. Todd Everett was the biographer for the hard cover Lp size book that is included which includes Frankie Laine's personel photos, concert posters, film posters, reviews from that period, movie stills, storys of other musicians who played with Frankie with of course Carl Fisher getting a mention. Not only that, the book also has the complete discography with dates, recording sessions, personnel all in order with pictures of his releases littered throughout amongst the pages which is absolutely stunning. Bear Family do state even they are little unsure for some of the very early listings due to conflicting information even with Frankie himself assisting at times. One other thing is you also get an old style picture disc that is included in the set with "Mamselle" and "All Of Me" being the songs included.

There are six discs within the box set with everyone packed to capacity for space with 153 songs starting from Frankie Laine"s very first recordings of "That's Liberty" and "In The Wee Small Hours". Another interesting point with the first disc is the inclusion of the demo for Frankie's first hit "Thats My Desire" with the last track being "Pickle In The Middle" with Artie Auerbach singing and Frankie providing backing vocals as a peanut seller. There is something about disc 1 with these early recordings with many of the songs being re-recorded later by Frankie at Columbia on his Jazz Spectacular album and to hear them in these early Jazz recordings is a true delight. Many of the recordings within would later be recorded again at Columbia and there is a difference with them and although at times there may seem a little less bounce but that is equalled up by the freshness from these wonderful early Jazz recordings of Frankie Laine. Every hit in this time span is included with even a French version of "West End Blues" which is actually track 1 on disc 2 and the hits keep coming throughout with "Black and Blue", Mamselle", "All Of Me" (the flip), "Two Loves Have I", "Shine", "On The Sunny Side Of The Street", with even "You're All I Want For Christmas and it is Jazz Vocals the lot. Many of the original hit versions have been placed on the last disc if there is an alternate or demo version of them with others being "Sunny Side Of The Street", "Georgia On My Mind" and "When Your Smiling" with Jerome Courtland from their movie soundtracks. We also get the two duets with Patti Page, yes two as only one was originally released and the other not till this set with two songs being respectively "I Love You For That" ( 2000) and "If I Were Your Baby" (1950) but they are on disc 4 which is where things take a turn for Frankie Laine as this is were he meets up with Producer Mitch Miller and his career started to take that Western touch. One should remember that way back in 1949 that the sound effect used on "Mule Train" were some of the first recordings to add these exotic touches with whips being the main addition. Of course previous to the recording of "Mule Train" we had the sets title which was a huge hit being "That Lucky Old Sun" which was recorded only three months prior to "Mule Train" and quite a few of these numbers would later be redone with Mitch Miller again as well when they both left for Coloumbia on his late Western themed albums in the sixties.

Pick of the discs is extremely difficult but I will say that disc 1, 4, 5, and 6 are equal with 2 and 3 not really far behind. Pick of the songs, some that have to be mentioned are "Roses Of Picardy", "By The River Of Sainte Marie" with all their swing and bounce or perhaps that dark blues of "Black Lace", the beautiful ballad "Your Wonderful" and all the joy, swing and bounce of "Exactly Like You". It does not get any better, complete or accurate with the Bear Family releases and this is no exception. One other note the remastering is superb with hiss, static etc removed with the sound quality being the best there is for every song. Even if you are thinking of getting into all this early Frankie Laine material you would have to purchase a myriad of old records at 78,45 and 33 rpm and thats if you could find them in a reasonable condition which would far outlay the price of the set and still there are added tracks that were never even released. This is the best thats out there in any sound format and if you do take the punt and buy this set you will sure not be disappointed and like me you will play it all over and over and not just certain areas within. Gorgeous, music from Frankie Laine at this time span but the quaility really never changed no matter what he sang it was all done beautifully and with the added bonus of the emotion that Frankie Laine placed within every number he sang.