The Lush Years

by Mark Deming It's hard to say if the title The Lush Years was meant to refer to the production and arrangements on these ten songs or was a "clever" reference to Dino's well-documented fondness for booze. But in any event, most of these cuts, drawn from the Capitol Records vaults years after Martin left the label, feature high production values and polished vocal performances from Martin, especially on the romantic "Be an Angel," the easy swing of "I Never Had a Chance," and the gentle heartache of "Where Can I Go Without You?" (though the latter has a very curious sax solo that nearly destroys the mood). The set also boasts a pair of rare cuts tied in with some of Dino's better film roles, "Rio Bravo" (a complete performance of a tune that appears only as a fragment in Howard Hawks' classic Western) and "Love Is a Career" (the latter recorded to promote the 1959 film Career, though it doesn't appear in the movie). The Lush Years was one of four albums Capitol released through its subsidiary label Tower to make use of single sides and unreleased tracks that had never appeared on one of Dino's LPs, and while this is lesser known material in Martin's repertoire, his confident and easygoing vocals are as strong as any of his hits from his Capitol era.