Long Distance Dedications Vol 1 (2007)

Product Summary Label: Top Sail UPC: 00805667190527 Release Date: 1/23/2007 Buy.com Sku: 203167373 Item#: M375MS Format:  CD Song Listing Disc 1 Song Title Sample 1. Greatest Love Of All - Whitney Houston ~ Various Artists 2. I Will Remember You - Sarah McLachlan ~ Various Artists 3. You Are So Beautiful - Joe Cocker ~ Various Artists 4. If I Could Turn Back Time - Cher ~ Various Artists 5. I Hope You Dance - Lee Ann Womack ~ Various Artists 6. Unchained Melody - The Righteous Brothers ~ Various Artists 7. Endless Love - Diana Ross/Lionel Richie ~ Various Artists 8. Against All Odds - Phil Collins ~ Various Artists 9. Daniel - Elton John ~ Various Artists 10. Time In A Bottle - Jim Croce ~ Various Artists 11. Somewhere Out There - Linda Ronstadt/James Ingram ~ Various Artists 12. I Will Remember You - Amy Grant ~ Various Artists 13. Right Here Waiting - Richard Marx ~ Various Artists 14. Living Years, The - Mike & The Mechanics ~ Various Artists 15. What A Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong ~ Various Artists 16. You're The Inspiration - Chicago ~ Various Artists 17. I Honestly Love You - Olivia Newton-John ~ Various Artists 18. Babe - Styx ~ Various Artists 19. Three Times A Lady - The Commodores ~ Various Artists 20. It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday - Boyz II Men ~ Various Artists   Album Notes and Credits Notes & Personnel Info The 24th volume in a series of compilations beginning with the words "Casey Kasem Presents," Casey Kasem Presents: The Long Distance Dedications, released just in time for 2007's Valentine's Day (a major record-selling date each year), is a CD representation of what annotator Rob Durkee says is "the most popular feature in all of Casey Kasem's countdown shows." Since August 26, 1978, to be exact, the nationally syndicated DJ has been reading over the air letters from listeners in which they ask that particular songs be played and dedicated to some far-off loved one. If these 20 Top 40 hits, at a CD-filling length of nearly 76 minutes, are the most popular parts of that most popular segment, they represent a diversity of dedication on the part of those listeners. Three-quarters of the songs date from the '70s and '80s, a number that increases if you consider one of tracks that was recorded in the '60s, Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," a de facto '80s song by virtue of its renewed popularity as a movie theme in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987). (By this measure, the other '60s track, the Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody," itself a remake of a '50s movie theme, could be moved to 1990 due to its association with the film Ghost.) Whatever period the recording comes from, however, the musical approach is the same. Practically every song is a ballad, sung with painful sincerity over a simple piano melody augmented by a finger-picked acoustic guitar. The messages conveyed in these dedications range from simple expressions of romantic feelings ("You Are So Beautiful," "Endless Love," "You're the Inspiration") to more complex declarations that acknowledge separation or turmoil ("Unchained Melody," "Somewhere Out There," "Right Here Waiting," "Babe"), and on to romantic regret and dissolution ("If I Could Turn Back Time," "Against All Odds," "I Honestly Love You"). Two songs proclaim "I Will Remember You" (different compositions performed by Sarah McLachlan and Amy Grant); a couple are philosophical ("I Hope You Dance," "What a Wonderful World"); and there are messages of fraternal ("Daniel") and paternal ("The Living Years") attachment. Perhaps oddest of all is the leadoff track, lyricist Linda Creed and composer Michael Masser's theme song for the 1977 film biography of Muhammad Ali The Greatest, as rendered in its 1985 hit recording by Whitney Houston, "Greatest Love of All." This ode to selfishness and egotism (or, as its adherents would claim, self-esteem and empowerment) concludes, "Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all." That truly makes it the anthem of both the "Me Decade" of the '70s and the "greed is good" Reagan era of the '80s. But, in this context, its inclusion provokes the question, who would you dedicate it to? Yourself? Durkee helpfully notes that it was in fact once requested by "a girl overcoming bulimia" who wrote, "Believing in yourself is the only way to accomplish things." Well, that explains the "dedication" part, sort of, but the "long distance" part remains problematic. ~ William Ruhlmann   Technical Info Release Date : 01/23/2007 Original Release Date : 2007 Catalog ID : 71905 Label : Top Sail Productions Number of Discs : 1 Studio/Live : Studio Mono/Stereo : Stereo SPAR Code : n/a UPC : 00805667190527    Related Videos In Search of Solid Ground... Draw The Line: David Gray