Toni Arden - Collection 1944-61 (2021)

Toni Arden was one of the girl singers who learnt their trade singing with big bands during the mid-1940s before embarking on a solo career as the market changed, and star vocalists became popular with the advent of TV. The daughter of a singer at the Metropolitan Opera, she started performing in her teens during the war years, and made her first records with the Al Trace Orchestra for the National label in 1944. A year or two later, appearances on the “Doorway To Fame” TV talent show led to a solo contract with Columbia, for whom she scored a hit with her first release “I Can Dream Can't I”. This great-value 50-track 2-CD collection comprises selected A & B sides from her releases on the National, Columbia, RCA-Victor and Decca labels from this era, including performances with the Al Trace Orchestra, Xavier Cugat Orchestra, The Four Lads, Champ Butler, and the orchestras of Hugo Winterhalter, Percy Faith and Paul Weston. It features all her career chart entries including the Top 10 hit “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” plus “Too Young”, “I’m Yours”, “Kiss Of Fire”, “Are You Satisfied” and “Padre”. Although she was very much a song stylist of the early’50s she sustained a chart career into the post-rock ‘n’ roll era, and this collection of her work, featuring at least one side of most of her singles from this era, underlines the talent that enable her to achieve that.