Anthony Newley

There were so many different aspects of Anthony Newley's long career, including a lengthy discography, that a single-disc compilation of his recordings restricted to the archives of one record label is necessarily incomplete. In 1959, a 27-year-old Newley became an unlikely pop star in the U.K. thanks to his starring role in the movie musical Idle on Parade, in which he played a pop star patterned on Elvis Presley. The ballad "I've Waited So Long" from the film took off for the Top Ten, and Newley followed it with 12 more British chart entries on Decca Records through 1962. All of them are included on Decca's Best of Anthony Newley, in chronological order. (The Idle on Parade EP is represented by its title track.) They include his covers of the American hits "Personality" (Lloyd Price) and "Why?" (Frankie Avalon), along with "Do You Mind," from his subsequent film Let's Get Married, plus novelties like "Strawberry Fair" and "Pop Goes the Weasel" that are straight out of the British music hall tradition. By the early '60s, Newley was writing his own material with partner Leslie Bricusse, and one of his last Top 40 hits was the standard "What Kind of Fool Am I?" from their musical +Stop the World - I Want to Get Off. The 20-track disc is rounded out with seven album recordings drawn from Newley's five-year tenure, 1959-1964, on Decca, including more +Stop the World songs ("Gonna Build a Mountain," "Once in a Lifetime"), more novelties and traditional pop tunes, and even a Beatles cover ("I Saw Her Standing There"). Newley was nothing if not eclectic as a recording artist, but that was because he treated each song as a theatrical performance and submerged himself in the role, being alternately charming, goofy, and melodramatic as required. Best of Anthony Newley only represents a portion of one period of his recorded work, but it gives a sense of his range, and it contains all his British hits as a recording artist. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide