Bobby Vinton

This discount-priced two-fer combines two Bobby Vinton albums originally separated by several years, Please Love Me Forever, from late 1967, and My Elusive Dreams, from the first quarter of 1970. In both cases, the albums were assembled to tie in with a hit single Vinton had scored, which served as the title track. "Please Love Me Forever" represented a comeback for the singer, giving him his first Top Five hit in three years. The album also featured its follow-up, "Just as Much as Ever," and was filled out by a variety of standards that went back to 1923 for "Who's Sorry Now" and also included copyrights from the '30s, '40s, '50s, and '60s, all rendered in Vinton's trademark friendly tenor with pop-country/easy listening arrangements courtesy of Nashville producer Billy Sherrill. Sherrill was also the co-author of the 1967 country hit "My Elusive Dreams," which Vinton turned into a crossover pop hit in early 1970, turning in a surprisingly emotional reading of the maudlin country lyric. To create an album this time, he turned to the recent pop charts of the day, presenting his versions of hits like "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" and "Something." The approaches of the two albums thus have some similarities and some differences. One might have expected that each would be paired with an album closer to it instead, but the result is still 22 winning Vinton performances. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide