Swingin' Dors

Diana Dors is known more as an actress and sex symbol than as a singer, but she did sing on record during her heyday. This 1960 album is a competent pop-jazz session, with accompaniment from the Wally Stott Orchestra (Stott perhaps being best known internationally for working in the '60s with Scott Walker, Dusty Springfield, and Shirley Bassey). Unlike many records by celebrities known mostly for acting, Swinging Dors isn't a novelty album, or an embarrassment. It's just a very straightforward swing jazz-flavored adult pop session, Dors singing much better, in the conventional sense, than her American counterpart Marilyn Monroe. At the same time, Monroe, for all her vocal limitations, projected much more character than Dors does on this record, which is surprisingly only in its utter ordinariness. ~ Richie Unterberger