Gwendoline (aka The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak)

Shep Fields, born Saul Feldman in Brooklyn in 1910, led one of the many highly successful "sweet" music orchestras of the 1930s, popular both on radio, in ballrooms and on record, and developing a trademark sound and style which he called his "Rippling Rhythm" that helped set him apart from other bands. In the early 1940s, he re-launched the orchestra with a new style as Shep Fields & His New Music, and continued having hits. Although his chart career was not as long as that of some of his peers, he nevertheless racked up nearly forty hits between his debut in 1936 and 1943, when the American Federation of Musicians recording ban seriously affected his career momentum, although he continued recording and performing into the 1960s. This excellent-value 50-track 2-CD set comprises selected A & B sides of his releases on the Bluebird label from this era, and features all his 38 career hits, including the No. 1s "Did I Remember?", "In The Chapel In The Moonlight", "That Old Feeling", "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down", "Thanks For The Memory", "Cathedral In The Pines" and "South Of The Border", with most of the recordings including performances by one of his featured vocalists Bob Goday, Charles Chester, Dick Robertson, Hal Derwin, Dorothy Allen, Sonny Washburn, Ken Curtis and Ralph Young. The collection offers a substantial and entertaining showcase for the sound and style that brought him success, and which was very much part of the musical zeitgeist of the era.