The concept of a "Greatest Hits" album has often been viewed with a cynical eye by discerning music lovers. An artist combines six or seven hit recordings with some other rather mediocre selections and applies the term Greatest Hits to the package.

Jonathan Edwards has never faced this problem. For one thing, he views each performance from his five LP albums as a great and indisputable hit, and he was deeply distressed when the first Jonathan and Darlene "Greatest Hits" album was limited to only fourteen tracks.

He has since been resentful and unpleasant, and at the request of his wife Darlene, Corinthian Records has begged him to select another fourteen of his musical treasures to constitute Volume II.

After an agonized winnowing process he has chosen this remarkable blend of sophistication, nostalgia, swinging jazz, and Parisian romance.

The recordings from his and Darlene's Singalong album feature a rather bewildered but vigorous male chorus attempting to keep up with his pianistic triumphs and Darlene's incomparable vocal stylings.

The singing accomplishments of Darlene Edwards have been the subject of much critical analysis and comment, but even the most unfriendly writers agree that she is consistent-even doggedly so.

No challenge is too great for her, and it has even been suggested that some inadequacies in Jonathan's arrangements have kept her from greater stardom. Jonathan rejects this criticism out of hand, as he always does when his innovative musical achievements are questioned.


Basil d'Acapella, 1993