Rhino Handmade, the specialty, Internet-only boutique label of the mighty Rhino, has come up with another gem. Little Jimmy Scott’s lost classic, Falling in Love Is Wonderful, joins the ranks of the audiophile LP version of John Coltrane’s The Heavyweight Champion: The Complete Atlantic Recordings [Year 2000 Second Edition Album Box Set] and the compulsively compiled The Stooges – 1970: The Complete Funhouse Sessions CD box set and many other collector-oriented, limited-edition releases by Rhino Handmade.
There was a mini renaissance for Scott in the early ’90s when he cut a few CDs for Warner Bros., and there seems to be another one this fall, starting with the documentary Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew, continuing with his autobiography, Faith In Time: The Life Of Jimmy Scott, co-written with David Ritz, who also supplied liner notes to the Falling in Love Is Wonderful reissue, which is limited to 7,500 individually numbered copies worldwide and is only available from www.rhinohandmade.com.
The CD features the original LP’s 10 tracks, including “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “They Say It’s Wonderful,” and the keyboard stylings of the album’s producer, Ray Charles (who also writes an intro in the CD booklet). Charles produced the LP, which was originally released in 1963, for his Tangerine label, but the album was quickly recalled due to a contractual dispute between Scott and Savoy Records. Subsequently, what was to be a breakthrough album for Scott ended up being but one of many road bumps in his long and winding career.
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