You Belong to Me/Have You Heard

A New Jersey quintet that pretty much sounded like a doo wop group singing in front of a classic big-band orchestra, the Duprees were built to inspire nostalgia, and although they had a handful of hits, their sound, even though they stripped it down when rock & roll hit, seemed instantly out of step with the times, effectively painting the group into a corner. This two-fer combines their Coed Records LPs, 1962's You Belong to Me and 1963's Have You Heard, on a single disc, and it contains all of the Duprees' truly essential tacks, including their covers of Jo Stafford's 1952 hit "You Belong to Me" and Joni James' "Have You Heard" from 1953, as well as an unusually sparse arrangement of "The Exodus Song" (simply called "Exodus" in the Duprees' version), and distinctive sides like "My Own True Love" and "Why Don't You Believe Me." Ace's Their Complete Coed Masters disc from 1996 has a few more tracks and is a marginally better buy, but the sequence flows a little smoother here than it does on the Ace set. ~ Steve Leggett