Ray Conniff You Are The Sunshine of My Life / Laughter In The Rain

My grandmother use to have You Are The Sunshine Of My Life on 8-Track of all things! I use to go to her house and sit for hours listening to these songs. For years I have looked for this album to be released on cd - and it is here! As I listened to some of the sample tracks, the tears started flowing. I've heard that the sense of smell is a memory-inducer, but I believe sound is right up there.

A real treat - alternate renditions of gems of the past, in very credible fashion. Ought to enhance any serious collection.

Wow, I wrote my review and forgot to include Ray Conniff's arrangement of Tie A Yellow Ribbon...This song is PERFECT and Ray Conniff gives this song the ENERGY and the PRECISION that the Tony Orlando version lacked..The vocal arrangement of the singers is STUPENDOUS and the drama that builds up to the end where the singers come in with the "ah's ah's" is CONNIFF VOCAL ARRANGMEENT PERFECTION...Me and my dad sat at home one Sunday afternoon and figured out the words to Tie a Yellow Ribbon manually, putting the needle back and forth until we had it on paper...(Back in those days, you could not go on the internet and click on lyrics.com and off you were! THE YELLOW RIBBON arrangement builds up and builds to track the emotions of the lyrics....The possibility of seeing a YELLOW RIBBON when returning from the war is a build up of emotions and expectations which Ray Conniff understood when composing the arrangment........The vocals are BEYOND PERFECT and the "ta ta ta ta taratara's" are as GOOD AS IT GETS......A real GEM of an arrangement for you to OWN! Run out and order this CD.....................

Sunshine of My Life is a landmark LP.....It was one of those outstanding LPs that quietly crawled up to our collections without much fanfare but it was TERRIFIC in every sense of the word! What a gorgeous and positive arrangement Ray gives us with Stevie Wonder's Sunshine of My Life...Very similar take as I Can See Clearly Now, which is very similar "arrangement-wise" to Sunshine of My Life...Now the GEM of this LP, honestly folks, has anybody ever heard a BETTER version of KILLING ME SOFTLY then this one on Ray Conniff's LP...I wish Roberta Flack would have sung over Ray's arrangement.......I have gone to weddings and hear cover bands playing Killing me w/Ray Conniff's arrangement...Glady Knight's Neither One Of Us is presentated by Sir Conniff in such a beautiful arrangement "singer-wise" as well as instrumentally...Joe Raposo's SING, SING A SONG is OUTSTANDING and showcases Ray's "ta ta ta" type singer-instrumentalist play-alongs! Laughter in the Rain is just plain SWEET and FILLED with LAUGHTER! What a gorgeous version of Terry Jack's SEASON IN THE SUN! ERES TU is just TERRIFIC and let's not forget Olivia Newton John's I HONESTLY LOVE YOU which is sung by Jackie WARD with a spirit of love gone right and wrong at the same time...The singers in this LP champion the arrangements... This is an LP that gives the singers an opportunity to stand ahead of the instrumental work..........KUDOS to Collectibles for FINALLY PUTTING THESE TWO GEMS OUT for all of us to Laugh w/Sunshine and with RAIN because of RAY CONNIFF! What works of GENIUS.......Ray Conniff THE GENIUS, Ray CHARLES the GENIUS...Hey, they are both making music together right now!

This marvellous Conniff offering is typical of Ray's success in presenting rearrangements of contemporary recordings in the seventies - a masterpiece! Very few artists have been able provide new and different renditions of popular songs that were actually better than the originals, but this was typical of Ray Conniff's approach to "good music." These CDs will have the listener lying back with eyes closed and being wrapped in delightful music!

"You Are the Sunshine..." is one of the best albums Ray Conniff ever produced. Although Ray had many different "sounds" through out the years, this albums production value and sound quality along with the fantastic singers and arrangements used by Ray during the 70's was one of the best of all times. "Laughter In The Rain", recorded a couple of years later is also a wonderful album with a very different "sound" from "You Are The Sunshine". "Laughter" offers a smaller muciscal back-up group of musicians and more of a focus on the singers, some of which appear on "You Are The Sunshine..". Thanks again for making the two GEMS availble on CD!

At last!! My favorite Conniff album from the seventies, "You are the sunshine of my life" is available from Collectables!

This album shows all the versatility of the Conniff arrangements, e.g.: "There was a girl/Killing me softly" showcases the singers Jackie Ward and Jerry Whitman in an unforgettable solo that even non-Conniff fans will love. "Duelling Banjos" and "Bah Bah Conniff Sprach" have the classical orchestra & chorus treatment, with a wonderful contemporary approach here, certainly among the best works Ray has ever produced!

"Laughter in the rain" is all-singer album and has a marvelous acoustic sound, very different of "....Sunshine", but also great!!

I highly recommend this spectacular 2-album compilation from this company that has become the no. 1, due to the first class quality of its releases. Keep up the great work!!
Jorge Carpes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil