Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

Before Cliff, there was toothsome Pat! In the '50s he recorded clean cut rock 'n'roll and pop songs that delighted teenagers the world over, or at least their parents who didn't want them getting into nasty Elvis, Little Richard or Jerry Lee! Phenomenonally successful, Pat Boone was instrumental in encouraging earlier CCM, since he personally financed Larry Norman and Randy Stonehill recordings. Having said that, it's hard to understand why anyone should be bothered about this re-release of Boone's tribute to the hymn writing of Fanny Crosby since musically it belongs to an era of light entertainment long-faded into the black and white of BBC histories. Fanny Crosby wrote some great hymns that have survived, the most famous of which "Blessed Assurance" can rightly be called a classic, but the problems with these timeless classics type of albums is that whilst the songs themselves sometimes endure, the recordings are very rarely timeless! These shlocky easy-listening arrangements, with Pat's sincere spoken monlogues introducing the songs, belong to an era that deserves to be left to rest in peace rather than revived and thrust on the record-buying public. For Pat Boone completists only!

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