Hard to Get: The Best of Gisele MacKenzie on RCA (1998)

About this title: Gisele MacKenzie's career flourished during the time when pop music was making the transition toward rock & roll and teen pop, which is reflected in several of her recordings. Her biggest hit, "Hard to Get," is purely a traditional pop song, but "Pepper Hot Baby" is a pop/rock hybrid -- it packs a mild rock rhythm with its big-band arrangement. MacKenzie covered the Charms' R&B hit "Two Hearts" (as did Frank Sinatra in 1955) and Pee Wee King's country hit "Slow Poke," but these recordings are outliers in a set of music dominated by classic pop. Hard to Get compiles MacKenzie's X and Vik ... read more

Tracks:

1. Hard to Get [Segal]
2. The Boston Fancy [Coleman]
3. Unchained Melody [North/Zaret]
4. Two Hearts, Two Kisses (Make One Love) [Stone/Williams]
5. Play Me Hearts and Flowers (I Wanna Cry) [Curtis/Green]
6. Beyond the Sea [Trenet/Lawrence]
7. The Star You Wished Upon Last Night [McHugh/Kaye]
8. Dinner for One, Please, James [Carr]
9. The River Seine [Roberts/Holt/LaFarg]
10. Ebb Tide [Sigman/Maxwell]
11. Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White [Louiguy/David/Larue]
12. This I Know [Hammack]
13. The Song from Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart?) [Auric/Engvick]
14. Too Young [Dee/Lippman]
15. Tell Me That You Love Me [Stillman/Bixio]
16. Answer Me, My Love [Winkler/Rauch/Sigma]
17. Learnin' the Blues [Silvers]
18. Slow Poke [King/Price/Stewart]
19. Hey There [Adler/Ross]
20. Pepper Hot Baby [Evelyn]

Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is further described below.