Details

In mid-1962, Reprise Records had taken a Sammy Davis, Jr. recording of a show-stopping number from an English musical which was about to open on Broadway, and released it as a single. The single (arranged by Marty Paich) made the Billboard charts, peaking at #17. At the same time, they took the recording and named a whole album after it, adding a couple of new cuts but filling it mostly with material that had already been released on previous Sammy Davis, Jr. albums. The album also charted, peaking at #14. That single and that album was What Kind Of Fool Am I.

Reprise clearly believed that lighting could strike twice! In late 1962, Sammy Davis, Jr. recorded “As Long As She Needs Me”, a show-stopping number from the West End hit musical Oliver!, which was due to open on Broadway in January 1963. The single (arranged by Marty Paich) was dutifully released in January and spent 9 weeks on the Billboard Top 100 (peaking at #19 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart).

So, Reprise did the only logical thing: they took the recording and named a whole album after it, adding a couple of new cuts but filling it mostly with material that had already been released on previous Sammy Davis, Jr. albums. By March, they had As Long As She Needs Me ready to go – with no liner notes and only simple cover art – and hit the stores. The strategy met with success again: the LP spent 15 weeks on the Billboard Top LPs chart, peaking at #73. Not quite the smash hit as its predecessor was, but nothing to sneeze at.

In addition to the title tune, the album featured three Sammy cuts new to LP: “There Was A Tavern In The Town” (which had been on Sammy’s second Reprise single release back in 1961 and was arranged by Count Basie’s long time collaborator Neal Hefti), “Step Out Of That Dream”, and “A Second Chance” (also known as “Song From ‘Two For The Seesaw’”).

To fill out the remainder of the LP, Reprise included four titles which had appeared on The Wham Of Sam, and another four titles that had appeared on Sammy Davis, Jr. Belts The Best Of Broadway. Given that these are two of Sammy’s greatest albums, one can appreciate there is therefore plenty of top draw material in this LP release as well, although the overall song selection doesn’t gel as well as on the albums the recordings originated from.