Bobby Darin shifted musical styles throughout his career with a kind of restless abruptness, by turns a teen idol, rock & roll singer, Vegas crooner, pop singer, and folk-rocker, a maverick in the public eye if there ever were one. By 1962, when he signed with Capitol Records, he was in a sort of country and folk phase, although he was still also tracking something closer to traditional pop, and it's easy to see in retrospect that he was casting about, maybe searching for a way to bring it all together. He was, in a sense, the bridge between the
Frank Sinatra generation and the generation that rushed in with
the Beatles and
Bob Dylan. In all, he recorded some eight albums for Capitol over the next four years before leaving in 1966 to return to Atlantic Records, and this set picks singles and key tracks from that era.
Darin didn't have any big hits during this time, and it's clear he was in transition, so this isn't the place to start for listeners looking for an introduction to this always interesting singer, but for more serious fans, this is a nice survey of one of his least-known periods. ~ Steve Leggett