Greatest Hits of Rod McKuen Expanded Edition

Rod’s 1969 Greatest Hits release didn’t exactly just feature his greatest hits. Instead of the usual music biz cash-in strategy of lifting songs from preceding albums to create a best-of, Rod’ever the artistic striver’chose his most popular songs to re-record with new arrangements with Arthur Greenslade. His unconventional move paid off with a gold record, which we at Real Gone have supplemented with six bonus tracks from earlier and later sessions to create a fully fleshed-out portrait of the singer-songwriter-performer. McKuen fans can recite many of the lyrics to these songs; the spoken word piece ‘Stanyan Street;’ ‘The Ivy That Clings to the Wall,’ first heard in the 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; ‘The Lovers,’ which Jacques Brel translated and recorded; ‘Lonesome Cities,’ later covered by Frank Sinatra on his all-McKuen album; ‘Seasons in the Sun,’ which Terry Jacks took to #1; ‘If You Go Away,’ which was performed by everybody from Dusty Springfield to Tom Jones to Brenda Lee; and, among the bonus tracks, ‘Jean,’ which Oliver Swofford took to #2 on the charts in 1969. McKuen biographer Barry Alfonso contributes insightful liner notes, with copious photos and a new remastering by Mike Milchner at SonicVision. The place to dive into the McKuen discography!