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Disc 1 features his rock 'n' roll years from 1958 to 1963. Most of his great rock 'n' roll moments are here, including "Move It" (his first hit), "Gee Whiz It's You," "Lucky Lips," his excellent cover of Jerry Lee Lewis' "It'll Be Me" and the Elvis-influenced "Nine Times Out of Ten." Some of Cliff's early movie recordings are on this disc as well, like "Livin' Doll" (his first UK #1 hit), "The Young Ones," "Summer Holiday," "Bachelor Boy" and "The Next Time." The rock-driven recordings feature the distinctive guitar picking from The Shadows, who would go on to be Britain's most successful rock 'n' roll group of the pre-Beatles era.
Disc 2 covers the period between 1964 and 1977, with Cliff further developing his craft and maturity as a vocalist. There are fewer uptempo rockers and more of the mellow pop ballads that have dominated his career ever since. The sublime "Visions" and the harmony-laden "Miss You Nights" stand out as flawless performances of well-conceived ballads. This disc also presents his foray into contemporary Christian and inspirational pop, with "Throw Down a Line," "Sing a Song of Freedom" and "Power to All Our Friends" appealing to a mainstream audience. The disco-influenced pop-rock of the secular "Devil Woman" would be his biggest hit in the US, peaking at #6 on the Billboard chart in 1976.
40 GOLDEN GREATS remains one of the best compilations of Cliff Richard's hits. The sound quality on these CDs, however, is horribly inconsistent. But throughout this collection, he manages to retain a youthful vocal style, even when confronted with lightweight material. (Does anybody remember "Wind Me Up [Let Me Go]"?) His phrasing and ability to convey soul and depth of feeling puts many of today's popular singers to shame. They could benefit from Sir Cliff's example.
I was delighted, therefore, to find that: -
1) With one exception (The Young Ones), those tracks only ever mixed in mono (Living Doll, Move It etc.) are also presented here in proper mono, and not mono reprocessed to stereo. This is a big plus over the vinyl version which gave us the mono mixes overlaid with stereo effects that made Cliff and The Shads sound like they'd recorded their tracks in a shower booth. (Even some of the true early 60s stereo tracks on the vinyl version seemed to suffer from the "shower booth" effect.)
2) Some of the early tracks found on the vinyl release in mono reprocessed to stereo (Theme For A Dream, Do You Want To Dance, etc.) are now available in true stereo, i.e. they've used the genuine stereo masters for this release.
3) The real biggie for me is that this is the only Cliff CD compilation that I've found that uses the right take of "Bachelor Boy." It's presented here in discrete stereo, suggesting that it was mixed down onto two tracks prior to producing the mono mix. The vinyl version of 40 Golden Greats, the Singles Collection CD box set and The Whole Story double-CD all use a different take wherein Cliff gives us a meant-to-be-rousing "Yeeeeaaah" before he launches into the final chorus. This "Yeeeeaaah" wasn't there on the original single. The only other non-vinyl-single release that I have with the correct version on is a stereo vinyl re-issue of the "Summer Holiday" soundtrack LP.
On the downside, some of the masters used are a bit rough in quality, lacking in both the bass and the treble departments. I'll forgive this, however, because the upsides make the purchase so worthwhile and get right a load of things that even "The Singles Collection" gets so wrong.
Apart from Throw down a line, this includes all the classics that you want from the first twenty years of Cliff's incredible career including Move it, Living doll, Travelling light, Please don't tease, When the girl in your arms, Young ones, Bachelor boy, The next time, Summer holiday, Lucky lips, One the beach, The minute your gone, Visions, In the country, The day I met Marie, Miss you nights and Devil woman - not forgetting his two Eurovision entries, Congratulations and Power to all our friends. If I haven't listed your favorite among them, don't worry - every track here is a classic.
Of course, for a really comprehensive collection, you must buy that boxed set, but if you are mainly interested in Cliff's sixties music and you don't need to have all the hits from the period this is the compilation for you.
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