Blue Velvet

AMG Review of Blue Velvet

Greg Adams
All Music Guide

Blue Velvet is a retitled reissue of Bobby Vinton's album Blue on Blue, originally released earlier in 1963. Sporting a theme inspired by Vinton's hit "Blue on Blue," every song on the album has the word "blue" in its title. The sobbing balladeer style heard later on hits like "Mr. Lonely" hadn't quite developed at this stage, so the songs are quite diverse. A few rockers find Vinton copping some of Bobby Vee's vocal mannerisms, and the finger-snapping renditions of pop standards like "Blue Skies" and "My Blue Heaven" are pretty neat but completely unlike his later lushly orchestrated allads. Vinton covers fairly recent hits like Don Gibson's "Blue Blue Day" and the Fleetwoods' "Mr. Blue," but most of the songs were already oldies in 1963. The title of the album was changed to Blue Velvet to promote the "Blue Velvet" single, which became Vinton's second number one hit a few months after the album was first released.