Jazz critic Will Friedwald has stated that Julie London's records were so popular in the 1950s mainly because she looked so drop-dead gorgeous on the album covers. The marketing hook behind Calendar Girl may just be the main example for those critical of London's musical career, since its sleeve has made it a prized collector's item. The famous wraparound cover depicts cheesecake shots of London posed for every month of the year, while original issues of the album included a more-than-suggestive insert photo of the singer stretched out in bed. While Friedwald's correct about London's physical beauty, he's wrong in suggesting that the vocalist didn't have the talent to go along with her looks. Like Chet Baker, Julie London had an extremely limited vocal range but she did the most with what she had, possessing a special knack for torch songs that cast her in the role of a woman constantly being destroyed by love in general and by men in particular…

1958's London By Night is a typically high-class, high quality Julie London album. The standards and original tunes on the disc are strung together in such a way that they form a narrative of a lovelorn woman finding true love, getting dumped, and wandering around sadly until finding romantic redemption in the final song. London specialized in downbeat numbers and even the positive love songs are languid and moody, so they jibe well with the wrist-slashers that make up the majority of the album. Many of London's albums feature a song or two by her husband, Bobby Troup. London By Night is no exception and it features two Troup originals: the opening track, "Well, Sir," and "Just the Way I Am," which closes with the emotionally naked line "What a fool I was to dream that someday you could love me just the way I am"…

Julie (1957). Julie London made the folks at the Liberty label rich with more than 25 albums, exclusive of compilations, cut over a period of 1955 to 1969. Usually put into a torch song setting, this release allows London to shed that garment and become jazzy. The reason, of course, is the presence of the invaluable Jimmy Rowles, who did the charts, played piano, and led an orchestra of top-flight but unidentified musicians. Unidentified or not, that could well be Don Fagerquist's muted trumpet on "Midnight Sun" and other cuts and either Ted Nash or Bob Cooper on tenor on "Somebody Loves Me." That the producer is Bobby Troup also helped to assure that this session would be a swinging affair. The arrangements let London's vocals take on a different demeanor. Instead of being sultry, she becomes dazzling and sparkling…

3 CD Set of Classic tracks by the Original artists. Featuring; "Sophisticated Lady", "Cry Me a River", "Boy on a Dolphin", "Round Midnight", "Love for Sale", "Blue Moon", "Mad About the Boy", "Let There Be Love", "Our Day Will Come", "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", "I've Got a Crush on You (digitally remastered)", "Love Letters" & many more…

Lonely Girl (1956). Liberty Records was pleasantly surprised when Julie London's debut album was such a big hit. Julie Is Her Name did contain the hit single "Cry Me a River," but each featured mellow jazz guitar and bass backing - which was considered commercial suicide in 1955. So, instead of changing direction and recording the follow-up Lonely Girl with a full orchestra, Liberty wisely allowed London to strip the accompaniment down even more on the album by dropping the backing down to one instrument. Lone guitarist Al Viola plays gentle Spanish-tinged acoustic behind the hushed vocalist, and it suits London perfectly. While the singer was often chided for her beauty and lack of range, she deftly navigates these ballads without any rhythmic underpinnings to fall back on. London's intense focus on phrasing and lyrics recalls Chet Baker's equally telescopic approach…

Sophisticated Lady (1962). "Sophisticated" is the right word to describe Julie London's cool vocal approach; it can be shoved into the background, but if you listen closely there's a lot of turmoil going on under its seemingly calm surface. Similar to Chet Baker's unruffled way with a lyric, London's self-described "thimble full of a voice" ends up describing how pain hasn't quite iced over all her emotions rather than proving how unfeeling she is. Also like Baker, so many of her best recordings are steeped in the style and mood of laid-back West Coast jazz. Sophisticated Lady is one of a string of records London cut in the early '60s with less of a jazz feel than most of her sessions from the '50s, but it's still a worthy album. If it's not exactly an essential session, it is a good one, and the backing orchestra is to blame for the album's shortcomings - not the vocalist…

The Very Best of Julie London offers an extensive overview of London's recording career with 50 selections she cut for Liberty Records between 1955 and 1969. The tracks are not newly remastered for the most part, but are taken from EMI's series of import two-fers and the domestic reissues Ron Furmanek and Bob Norberg produced in the early '90s. London was an album artist, not a singles artist - she had only one hit single in her long career - but she was a consistent favorite with adult contemporary and vocal jazz audiences and recorded over 20 LPs. Her albums often sustained a certain mood or assembled songs around a theme, but The Very Best of Julie London chops up her albums and rearranges the songs in no particular order - the repertoire and sequencing seem almost random…

Pop standards vocalist/actress Julie London was definitely at a transitional phase in her career when she cut Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (1969) - the final entry in her decade-and-a-half long relationship with Liberty Records. Modern listeners will revel in the obvious kitsch factor of a middle-aged, old-school female who is crooning rock & roll. Rightly so, as the two musical universes rarely collided with a lucrative outcome. However, just below the genre-bending veneer lie interesting interpretations of concurrently well-known selections with the occasional sleeper gem thrown in. The lush and admittedly antiquated orchestration doesn't mask London's smoky and smouldering pipes, and some scores definitely work better than others…

This release presents the complete original album Whatever Julie Wants (1961) by the amazing Julie London. It features a wonderful array of popular songs conducted and arranged by Felix Slatkin.
The LP is complemented here by singer's complete thematic allbum, About The Blues (1957), in which she devotes her sensuous voice to a variety of blues and blues-inspired tunes. This second LP was conducted and arranged by the well-known Russell Garsia. To round out this CD, we have also added four extra Julie London performances from the latter album's sessions, which were originally issued by the Liberty label as singles.