These came out in 2000 — or at least that’s when I got ’em. Here’s what I said about them back then (with some minor editing):
Ratpacking Vegas lounge lizard, suave Top 40 balladeer, tipsy movie and TV comic — during his long career, Dean Martin crafted more personas than an ID forger.
Four years after his death, each of them gets the star treatment in a new series of compilation albums. Dino the tuxedo-clad crooner — the cat who purred Everybody Loves Somebody on the tube — is the star of The Very Best Of Dean Martin, a grandma-friendly set of saccharine, string-swept singles such as You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You, That’s Amore and Little Ole Wine Drinker, Me.
Of course, when Dino hit the vino, you just know he loosened up as fast as his tux tie — and that’s the dude who comes out to play on Late At Night. Along with a mellow-guitar version of Everybody …, this disc captures Martin in a relaxed, last-set-of-the-evening vibe, gently gliding his velvet pipes through timeless treats by the likes of Johnny Mercer (Dream) and Rogers and Hart (It’s Easy To Remember), set to a series of hip, jazz-combo backdrops. But nothing is hipper — in an it’s-so-ridiculously-kitschy-it’s-cool way — than Hurtin’ Country Songs. Here, Dean ditches the sharkskin for buckskin and a Stetson, and good-naturedly goofs off on uncharacteristically twangy cuts including Hank Williams’ I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, Kris Kristofferson’s Make The World Go Away and Bob Wills’ My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You. The biggest surprise of all? It works — his slurry, smirking style goes just as well with Walk On By as it did with Melancholy Baby. As Dino himself would say, ain’t that a kick in the head?
