Dinah Shore - Happy in Love (1995)

This 20-track British compilation contains some of Dinah Shore's earliest recordings, originally released on RCA Victor Records and its subsidiary Bluebird between 1940 and 1942. Some of Shore's hits of the period are included, among them "Blues in the Night," "I Hear a Rhapsody," and "Yes, My Darling Daughter." But many of her other hits are missing, and the bulk of the set consists of her covers of songs that were hits for others, such as "You and I" (Glenn Miller), "Down Argentina Way" (Bob Crosby), and "Manhattan Serenade" (Tommy Dorsey). Even at this early stage, Shore's Southern charm is on display on songs like "Honeysuckle Rose," presaging the hits from later in the decade that would make her the most popular female singer on records of the 1940s.