Dream with Dean Dean Martin

• 1I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)03:13
• 2Fools Rush In03:02
• 3I'll Buy That Dream03:13
• 4If You Were the Only Girl (In the World)03:00
• 5Blue Moon03:04
• 6Everybody Loves Somebody03:08
• 7I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)02:34
• 8Gimme a Little Kiss, Will Ya, Huh?02:15
• 9Hands Across the Table02:15
• 10Smile02:56
• 11My Melancholy Baby02:43
• 12Baby, Won't You Please Come Home02:13
• Total Runtime33:36

Info for Dream with Dean

„A profile of a rugged Dean Martin by the fireplace with a cigarette adorns the jacket of this very interesting concept album. As Stan Cornyn's liner notes explain, 'his longtime accompanist' on piano, Ken Lane, with 'three of Hollywood's most thoughtful rhythm men' -- those being drummer Irv Cottler, bassist Red Mitchell, and guitarist Barney Kessel -- do create a mood, Dean Martin performing as if he were a lounge singer at 1:15 a.m. as the Saturday night crowd is dwindling. His signature tune, 'Everybody Loves Somebody,' is here in a laid-back style, produced by Jimmy Bowen, who would go on to produce Reba McEntire, Kenny Rogers & the First Edition, and so many others, also the same man who was behind the 1964 number one smash. This album with the original Martin recording was released after the hit single version and on the same day as the Everybody Loves Somebody LP, but how many times does the audience get a different studio reading of a seminal hit record? Not only that, but the version that preceded the hit. The backing is so sparse it is almost a cappella, with Kessel's guitar noodlings and Ken Lane's piano. The bass is mostly invisible, coming in only when needed. It's a slow and sultry version that caps off side one. There is a rendition of Rodgers & Hart's 'Blue Moon' that strips away the doo wop of the Marcels' number one 1961 remake, and a run-through of the Bloom/Mercer hit for Glen Miller, 'Fools Rush In,' which Rick Nelson had launched into the Top 15 in 1963. Martin is just crooning away, and if the album has one drawback, it is that the 12 songs are incessant in their providing the same atmosphere. The backing quartet does not deviate from their job, nor does producer Jimmy Bowen add any technique, other than putting Martin's voice way out in the mix. But Dream With Dean was no doubt excellent research and development as Bowen landed 11 Top 40 hits with the singer from 1964's 'Everybody Loves Somebody,' which evolved out of this original idea to 1967's 'Little Old Wine Drinker, Me.' It sounds as if they tracked the album in one afternoon, and it is not only a very pleasant listening experience, it shows what a tremendous vocalist Dean Martin truly was.“ (Joe Viglione, AMG)

Dean Martin, vocals
Ken Lane, piano
Barney Kessel, guitar
Red Mitchell, double bass
Irving Cottler, drums

Produced by Jimmy Bowen

Digitally remastered

Dean Martin
Playboy called him "the coolest man who ever lived." Elvis Presley worshipped him. "He was the coolest dude I'd ever seen, period," recalled Stevie Van Zandt, adding, "He wasn’t just great at everything he did. To me, he was perfect."

That man is Dean Martin. Simply put, he was a great singer. The warm sensuality of his voice continues to beguile generations of music fans with a winning style and a touch of mystery.

Born Dino Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, his early autobiography is as gritty as that of any hip-hop star. He delivered bootleg liquor, served as a speakeasy croupier and blackjack dealer, worked in a steel mill and briefly ruled the ring as boxing phenom Kid Crochet. Winning his share of bouts earned him little apart from a broken nose, but Dino's speakeasy experience put him in contact with club owners, resulting in his first singing gigs.

With a fixed nose and a boost from his pals in the nightclub underworld, he became Dean Martin, styling himself after the top male vocalist of the time, Bing Crosby, and met Frank Sinatra in New York.

Martin released his first single, "Which Way Did My Heart Go?" and was first paired with comic Jerry Lewis. The two shared a bill at the 500 Club in Atlantic City, but the night they combined their acts into a combo of manic comedy and debonair music saw the birth of a phenomenon. They were the hottest ticket around and parlayed their onstage success into a string of hit movies and television appearances.

During Martin and Lewis' decade-long partnership, Dean had such hits as "Memories Are Made of This," "That's Amore," "Powder Your Face With Sunshine," and "You Belong to Me," among others, all for the Capitol label. Yet when their partnership dissolved, showbiz pundits predicted Lewis' star would continue to rise and Martin's would fizzle.

The singer confounded the skeptics. As a solo act he was wowing crowds in Vegas, impressing critics and audiences in a series of dramatic film roles, scoring on TV with Dean Martin Show specials for NBC, and hitting the charts again with "Return to Me" and "Volare."

Not soon after, Martin's affiliation with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr. and the rest of the fabled Rat Pack supplanted his earlier rep. He fueled his image as a boozing playboy in onstage antics with his pals and ring-a-ding ensemble films like Ocean’s Eleven, yet Martin later claimed his cocktail-swilling persona was largely a pose.

Though he left Capitol to sign with Sinatra's fledgling Reprise label, Martin capped his tenure there with a bang, releasing two classic singles, "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" and "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You," showcasing him at the height of his powers.

Even at the height of Beatlemania with the group topping the charts, Martin reasserted himself with typical aplomb knocking the Fab Four from their perch with the buttery anthem "Everybody Loves Somebody." Several other hits, including "The Door Is Still Open to My Heart," "I Will," "Houston" and "Send Me the Pillow You Dream On," followed during his years at Reprise.

Though he continued to perform, Martin's visibility was greatest in films and on TV, where he nursed his lush-in-a-tux image with the long-running Dean Martin Variety Show and the hugely successful Dean Martin's Celebrity Roast.

His effortless vocalizing has become a modern shorthand for cool, as evidenced by the use of his songs in films, television, and ad campaigns. Dino: The Essential Dean Martin, a recent collection of both the Capitol and Reprise eras, sold more briskly than any previous Martin recording, going gold within months and platinum within a year.

Biographer Nick Tosches (Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams) described Martin as a classic menefreghista, Italian for "one who does not give a f---." The term, in Dean Martin's case, conveys not indifference but a refusal to be beaten down by the world and a determination to greet life with an easy smile, a graceful melody and an aura of unflappable cool.

This album contains no booklet.