Her polished swinging performances belie a more formal education. She is a natural singer, having learned by performance literally since childhood. Actually, she worked professionally for the first time when she was four years old. Her mother, Nan Traveline, was a headliner on the Keith circuit, and Helaine often traveled with her. This atmosphere had much importance on her feel for theatrics and music in general.

Unlike many of today's quickie singers, she is an accomplished musician, having led her own orchestra (of all boys!) while in grade school, and she plays crazy piano. Born in Camden, New Jersey, Helaine graduated from New York University. After leaving school, she temporarily retired from singing to take over as acting head of The World-Wide Advertising Agency, which had been founded by her father, Emile Scholz, the distinguished newspaper publisher and advertising executive.

Returning to her singing career, Helaine enjoyed highly successful engagements in the tough-to-please sophisticated Manhattan area, and then moved on to Europe, accepting a three-month engagement at prestigious Bricktops in Rome which extended to indefinite length. While this notoriety made her one of the favorites of the continent, the engagement at Bricktops had occurred following her New York success, the period when she was very active in the recording studios of MGM and Jubilee. in retrospect, one wonders the direction her career might have taken had she remained in this country, obtained the proper publicity guidance and declined that long sojourn in Europe. The recordings which were released did not, of course, go unnoticed and they have become very collectible among vocal recording aficionados. Helaine DeLys Is a charmer and her many night club fans in New York and the east will attest to this un-hesitatingly.

The recordings on this album come from her heavy recording period (the late 60s and early 70s) and do include both released and unreleased material. Helaine finds herself in excellent company on this album. The arrangements complimenting her exciting voice are by Peter Matz, Burt Bacharach, Bob Prince and Bernie Wayne. Matz also plays piano on most of his arrangements, while Jimmie Carroll conducted. The band was filled with top-notch New York studio musicians, such as pianist Peter Daniels, guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli and Helaine's close friend Pee Wee Irwin on trumpet. The songs themselves are good news too. Here you'll find familiar, but un-hacknied, not over-performed material. This alone makes the album desirable, and Sweet and Slow (Wayne), Gotta See Mamma (Daniels), Primitive Man and Smoky Morning (Matz), are but four quickly chosen examples of the thirteen great reasons for your ears to rtjoice with Helaine DeLys.

I regret to inform you that by choice Helaine has again returned to the business of advertising and public relations. Although, in turnabout, she did step forward into show business to manage Bricktop upon her return from Europe to the United States several years back and presented her at Soerabaja shortly before Brlcktop's death in 1983. It is wonderful that we have these recordings to remind us of Helaine's talent and after hearing this album, I know you'll join me in applauding the DeLovely DeLys, a truly fine performer.

-Jack Lazare