Hey Baby! The Nino Tempo & April Stevens Anthology

Product Review

Pop duos were all the rage in 1963, with Paul & Paula, Dick & Dee Dee, Steve & Eydie and Dale & Grace all registering big hits. Coolest of them all was the Nino & April twosome - Nino Tempo and his sexy-voiced sister April Stevens.

Other Nino & April CDs exist, but none quite like this one, which covers the Grammy-winning duo's entire recording career, which began in the 1950s and lasted for over 40 years. The tracks here are drawn from eight different labels - a challenge for our licensing department, or what?

Their moment of glory came in 1963, when their memorable revamp of Tin Pan Alley evergreen Deep Purple shot to #1. Over the next couple of years they gave a string of other oldies the distinctive Nino & April treatment, all cut for Atlantic Records. Among them was an eyebrow-raising interpretation of the Paris Sisters' I Love How You Love Me complete with bagpipes, something of a cult favorite these days.

In 1966 they switched to the hip White Whale label out of Los Angeles, home to the Turtles et al. There they updated their sound with lush singles such as All Strung Out and The Habit Of Loving You Baby, on which they came to beating their pal Phil Spector at his own 'Wall of Sound' game.

Are April's solo kitsch classic Teach Me Tiger and Northern Soul guilty pleasure Wanting You included? Of course they are. Same goes for Nino's solo 'Pet Sounds'-alike Boys Town and 1970s sax instro Sister James.

Title Tracks for Hey Baby! The Nino Tempo & April Stevens Anthology

1. Deep Purple
2. All Strung Out
3. Sweet And Lovely
4. Wanting You
5. You'll Be Needing Me Baby
6. Honeysuckle Rose
7. I Love How You Love Me
8. Follow Me
9. Whispering
10. Hey Baby
11. Love Kitten
12. The Habit Of Lovin' You Baby
13. The Coldest Night Of The Year
14. Alone Alone
15. Lovin' Valentine
16. Out Of Nowhere
17. Wings Of Love
18. Teach Me Tiger
19. Boys Town (Where My Broken Hearted Buddies Go) - Nino Tempo
20. I Can't Go On Livin' Baby Without You
21. Sister James - Nino Tempo & 5th Avenue Sax
22. Amazon River
23. Soft Warm Lips
24. America's Weather Girl (Spoken Word)

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review

(2 customer reviews)

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

Excellent overall but track selection keeps it from five stars, April 18, 2011

Zub "Zubenelgenubi" (Forks Twp., PA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Hey Baby! The Nino Tempo & April Stevens Anthology (Audio CD)

Most people listening to a.m. radio in the 60's hadn't heard of Nino Tempo and April Stevens until their somewhat schmaltzy and off-the-cuff rendition of the old chestnut "Deep Purple" topped the pop charts in late '63. Yet brother and sister Nino and April (nee Carol Lo Tempio) had been recording since the beginning of the decade and were hardly in the class of the then-dominant pimple-faced teeny-boppers that held sway to top-40 radio playlists. "Deep Purple" and a few lesser successful follow-up 45's kept Nino and April in the spotlight for a few months but then, like so many other American recording artists, were subsequently buried by the onslaught of Beatlemania and other British invasion recording artists. But Nino and April were not to be lost in time as were so many of their early `60's contemporaries. In 1966, signed to a new label - White Whale - and with some new self-penned tunes, the help of Phil Spector cohort Jerry Riopelle, engineers Larry Levine and Bones Howe...Read more

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

In Terms Of Their Hits Not As Good As The Varèse-Sarabande Release, August 16, 2011

AvidOldiesCollector (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hey Baby! The Nino Tempo & April Stevens Anthology (Audio CD)

As much as I love Ace and their products, including the deeply researched liner notes that accompany their releases, I have to say that the 1996 volume from Varèse-Sarabande titled "Deep Purple - The Best of Nino Tempo & April Stevens" comes out ahead insofar as the hit singles of this duo are concerned, despite having just 17 tracks to this volume's 24.

As a duo, the brother and sister act registered eight Hot 100 hits from 1962 to 1967 and added one more in 1975 on the Adult Contemporary (AC) charts, and with the exception of the latter all eight are in the Varèse-Sarabande release whereas Ace, for whatever reason, opted to leave out three of the first eight as well as that 1975 release in what they call an "anthology," choosing instead to concentrate on some failed singles and selected album cuts, including solo efforts by each.

The hits included here (and in the Varèse-Sarabande volume) are: Teach Me Tiger - # 86 Hot 100 December 1959...Read more