Makin' Whoopee!

The Eddie Cantor title in British archival label Conifer's Movie Stars series contains 20 tracks, 15 of them remastered from old 78s and the other five transcribed from movie soundtracks, covering a six-year period in the late '20s and early '30s. As with all Conifer releases, it's an unlicensed collection taking advantage of the 50-year copyright limit on recordings in Europe. Conifer is one of the more careful of the labels that recycle such material, including liner notes and some recording information, but the sound quality is not up to what would be expected of an entirely legitimate release. The soundtrack selections are all songs Cantor sang only in his movies, never in the recording studio: "My Wife Is on a Diet" from the 1929 short Getting a Ticket; "A Girl Friend of a Boy Friend of Mine" from Whoopee (1930); "Yes, Yes, My Baby Says 'Yes, Yes,'" from Palmy Days (1931); and "Put a Tax on Love" and "Build a Little Home" from Roman Scandals (1933). Also included are such Cantor hits as the title song, "What a Perfect Combination," and "Okay, Toots," as well as a 1934 remake of "That's the Kind of a Baby for Me" that marked the singer's first U.K. recording session. Covering only the later years of Cantor's period as a recording star (always a minor aspect of his multimedia career), the compilation cannot claim to be a comprehensive survey. But it does give a good sense of his ability to project his personality on record.