Doris DayThe Magic Of Doris DayReview

When Doris Day essentially retired from showbiz in the early 70s (to concentrate on her animal welfare campaigning), she had already been out of fashion for a couple of decades – but it wasn’t always so. When Doris Mary Anne von Kappelhoff chose her stage name she went for the rather plain-sounding ‘Doris Day’, after the song, “Day After Day”, which she performed in the early stages of her career. Doris was forever to be the clean-cut, innocent blonde singer and actress - later even dubbed “the world's oldest virgin. But she was also dearly loved by her public.

Despite her fame as an actress, Doris started her career as a singer and this 22-track compilation captures essentially two sides of her repertoire: the earlier Swing/Big Band material and the later pop/easy Listening material.

The CD opens with Doris’ signature track, the Oscar-winning classic “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)”, a song that she was so reluctant to record initially. Other classics follow with “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” which was given a new lease of life in Baz Luhrmann’s film Strictly Ballroom, “Pillow Talk” from the film of the same title co-staring her long-term friend Rock Hudson and “Move Over Darling”, co-written by her son Terry Melcher (who produced such classics as The Byrds’ “Mr Tambourine Man” and “Turn, Turn, Turn”). So far so good - but by the time you get to “Teacher’s Pet”, the title track of her 1958 film, you are in for a saccharine overdose and cringe-worthy lyrics.

It’s the older swing tracks that stand out and show the lesser-known side of Doris, like “Lullabye of Broadway”, “Sentimental Journey”, “Secret Love” and “The Deadwood Stage”, the latter two from the 1953 film Calamity Jane. She may lack sex (and camp) appeal but when talking about the Magic Of Doris Day then it’s the older material that fits this description.

For Doris aficionados two previously unreleased tracks have been included, these being the most recent work here: The medley “Secret Love/ Who Will Buy/ The 59th Street Song” is a winner; however her version of “The Way We Were” can’t compete with that of America’s other great singer/actress, Barbra Streisand.