That Lucky Old Sun [Prism]

British budget label Prism Leisure takes advantage of the 50-year copyright limit on recordings in Europe to commandeer an album's worth of Frankie Laine's Mercury recordings from the second half of the 1940s, including some of his biggest early hits, the chart-toppers "Mule Train" and "That Lucky Old Sun" as well as the Top Tens "That's My Desire" and "Shine." Outside of those four, there are only three other chart entries among the 20 selections, but the non-hit material includes Laine's interpretations of such standards as "All of Me," "Georgia on My Mind," "God Bless the Child," "But Beautiful," and "Black and Blue." Laine's Mercury recordings have been well represented on compilations over the years, making this an essentially redundant addition to his catalog of unofficial and unauthorized, if technically legal (in Europe, anyway) reissues.