All the Best

All the Best certainly lives up to its title, offering 17 of Leo Sayer's most popular pop efforts, including each of his Top 40 singles. Beginning with "The Show Must Go On," a frolicking vaudeville-type number with Russ Ballard playing banjo and a number four hit for Three Dog Night, the set entertainingly works its way through the years to reveal Sayer's adeptness at singing ballads and his overly effective pop melodramatics. The disco-flavored "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" was a number one hit for him in 1976, followed by the syrupy "When I Need You," which accomplished the same feat only four months later. Both singles came from Endless Flight, a platinum seller that also yielded a minor hit with "How Much Love," and would prove to be Sayer's strongest album. "One Man Band" is one of this set's finer points as well, covered more enthusiastically by Roger Daltrey on his 1973 Daltrey album, as was "Giving It All Away." The number two charted cover and number one adult contemporary hit of Bobby Vee's "More Than I Can Say" stands as one of Sayer's best-sung tunes, and introduced him into a new decade. His early-'80s material, represented by "Living in a Fantasy" (his last Top 40 single), "Have You Ever Been in Love," and the solidly written "Orchard Road," reveals a more mature-sounding side to Sayer but is still anything but unappealing. Out of the numerous compilations that have been released from Leo Sayer, All the Best covers the most entertaining ground. ~ Mike DeGagne