Early Girls Volume 5

Those of us who swear by the quality of product emanating from Ace of London were pleasantly surprised a few months ago when, after figuring that their excellent series The Golden Age Of American Rock 'n' Roll had ended with Volume 10, along came an 11th installment. The same applies to this equally-excellent but smaller series which appeared to have ended with Volume 4. Now we get # 5, complete with the usual top-of-the-line sound quality and extensive liner notes [23 pages] by Rob Finnis, including discography of the contents. Sprinkled throughout are vintage poster/record reproductions which includes photographs of Andrea Carroll, Patty Duke, The Royalettes, Rag Dolls, Doris Troy, The Elektras, Patty Lace & The Petticoats, Cathy Carroll, Janie Black (with sister Jeanne), The Paris Sisters (with Phil Spector); Jo Ann Campbell, The Four Coquettes, Diane Renay. The Starlets, Maureen Gray, Tina Robin, and The Shepherd Sisters. Here Ace presents a number of tunes that were the only hits for the artists concerned, a factor which makes them among the harder-to-find for those who focus on the "Girl Group Sound," as well as some that showed up on Billboard's "Bubbling Under" charts, introduced in 1959 to reflect those regional hits that just missed making the Hot 100. In that regard, tracks 2, 4, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 23, 24 and 25 were shut out of the Hot 100 in their respective years, but all "bubbled under." Fulls details are contained in the discography on the reverse of the jewel case. Almost half the contents here are also appearing in CD format for the first time, and in the cases of 12, 15 and 21, these are released in stereo for the first time. Except for the non-charters listed above, all the rest were Hot 100 hits to varying degrees, with the best of them being: Patty Duke's Don't Just Stand There (# 8 Hot 100 in July 1965 on United Artists); Just One Look by Doris Troy (# 3 R&B/# 10 Hot 100 in July 1963 on Atlantic and, somewhat incredibly, her only hit); Broken-Hearted Melody by Sarah Vaughan (# 5 R&B/# 7 Hot 100 in September 1959 on Mercury); Sue Thompson's Paper Tiger (# 23 Hot 100 in February 1965 on Hickory); and Navy Blue by Diane Renay (# 1 Adult Contemporary/# 5 Hot 100 in March 1964 on Ludix - quite an accomplishment for a small label, being right in the midst of the opening waves of the British Invasion). Trivia abounds in here as well. The Rag Dolls' initial (and only other) hit, Society Girl (# 91 Hot 100 in September 1964 on Parkway) was an "answer" song to Rag Doll by The 4 Seasons, a song from which this Sarasota, Florida trio also took their name. Dusty finished at # 55 Hot 100 in February 1965 on Mala. Anita & The So, as such, had just the one hit, Joey, which topped out at # 91 Hot 100 in February 1962 on RCA Victor. But this was really Anita Jean Grob, better known as Anita Kerr, whose Singers backed many of the biggest hits of the 1950s and 1960s. Also a One-Hit wonder were The Bermudas (Donnie - # 62 Hot 100 in May 1964 on Era for Rickie Page and her two daughters, but it turns out Rickie was also part of Bobby "Boris" Pickett's back-up group, The Crypt-Kickers. One correction to note is track 28, the full title of which is Dear Mr. D.J. Play It Again. In this # 95 Hot 100 in September 1961 on Mercury, One-Hit Wonder Tina Robin (who was a regular on Sing Along, a TV show hosted by Jim Lowe) sings snippets of classic R&B hits. Others with only one charter include Andrea Carroll (It Hurts To Be Sixteen - # 45 Hot 100 in August 1963 on Big Top), Cathy Carrol (Poor Little Puppet - # 91 Hot 100 in August 1962 on Warner - no relation to Andrea); and Maureen Gray (Dancin' The Strand - # 91 Hot 100 in June 1962 on Landa. The above blurb refers to this release as Ace's "last hurrah" in this series, and if that's so it's indeed a shame as there are so many more Girl Group Sound tunes waiting to see the light of day on a quality CD (for example, the above mentioned Society Girl and Dixie Danny by The Laurie Sisters from 1955). Let's hope they see their way clear to conjure up another volume.

Ace Records of the U.K. rolls out their fifth and purportedly final collection in their highly acclaimed "Early Girls" series. In this volume, hits by established adult pop performers of the era that were sampled in volume four have made way (with the possible exception of one Sarah Vaughan track) for a number of tunes that approached but never quite made the top-100 lists. While each of these near-misses have various claims to near-fame as described in the extensive notes for each track in the accompanying liner notes booklet, with so many top-100 girl-group tunes yet to see the light of day on quality CD, we collectors can only hope Ace will resurrect this series to capture some of these remaining and sought-after recordings. Wishes aside, this volume does deliver the goods as has come to be expected from Ace. A few well-recognized tunes in the likes of "Don't Just Stand There" from Patty Duke, "Navy Blue" by Diane Renay and Doris Troy's "Just One Look" anchor a treasure of rare and new-to-CD tracks such as the Rag Dolls' "Society Girl", Tina Robin's "Play It Again", the Bermudas' "Donnie" and Anita (of Anita Kerr Singers fame as session singers) and the So-and-So's' (in stereo!) "Joey Baby". Other treats include a first-time stereo take of the Chantels' last hit "Eternally". Near, if not at, the top of the list of true finds here is the first-time appearance of the Chiffons version of the Shirelles' "Tonights the Night". There's more to this story though, as the liner notes reveal that this was not the Chiffons group of "He's So Fine" fame but rather a one-off session by a west coast group of unknowns done in all probability merely to discourage other cover versions of the Shirelles' recording. With a massive 28 tracks (10 in stereo - 3,4,6,10,12,15,20,21,26,28), an informative and beautifully illustrated 24-page liner notes booklet crammed with interesting background on the included recordings and the collectors' finds noted above, this volume winds up this spectacular series in superb fashion. Another outstanding piece from Ace and is not to be passed up by any collector.

As I mentioned in a review of a two-volume set of, for lack of a better term, girl doo wop some of the songs which overlaps in this five-volume series, I have, of late, been running back over some rock material that formed my coming of age listening music (on that ubiquitous, and very personal, iPod, oops, battery-driven transistor radio that kept those snooping parents out in the dark, clueless, and that was just fine, agreed), and that of my generation, the generation of '68. Naturally one had to pay homage to the blues influences from the likes of Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, and Big Joe Turner. And, of course, the rockabilly influences from Elvis, Carl Perkins, Wanda Jackson, and Jerry Lee Lewis on. Additionally, I have spent some time on the male side of the doo wop be-bop Saturday night led by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers on Why Do Fools Fall In Love? (good question, right). I noted there that I had not done much with the female side of the doo wop night, the great `girl' groups that had their heyday in the late 1950s and early 1960s before the British invasion, among other things, changed our tastes in popular music. I would expand that observation here to include girls' voices generally. As there, I make some amends for that omission here. As I also noted in that earlier review one problem with the girl groups, and now with these generic girl vocals for a guy, me, a serious rock guy, me, was that the lyrics for many of the girl group songs, frankly, did not "speak to me." After all how much empathy could a young ragamuffin of boy brought up on the wrong side of the tracks like this writer have for a girl who breaks a guy's heart after leading him on, yes, leading him on, just because her big bruiser of a boyfriend is coming back and she needs some excuse to brush the heartbroken lad off in the Angels' My Boyfriend's Back. Or some lucky guy, some lucky Sunday guy, maybe, who breathlessly catches the eye of the singer in the Shirelles' I Met Him On Sunday from a guy who, dateless Saturday night, was hunched over some misbegotten book, some study book, on Sunday feeling all dejected. And how about this, some two, or maybe, three-timing gal who berated her ever-loving boyfriend because she needs a good talking to, or worst, a now socially incorrect, very incorrect and rightly so, "beating" in Joanie Sommers' Johnny Get Angry. And reviewing the material in this volume gave me the same flash-back feeling I felt listening to the girl doo wop sounds. I will give similar examples of that teen boy alienation for this volume, and this approach will drive the reviews of all five of these volumes in the series. It Hurts To Be Sixteen by Andrea Carroll, but what about a guy, a sixteen year old guy; Blue Summer by The Royalettes, make mine blue summerwinterfallspring; Sneaky Sue by Patty Lace & Petticoats, give me a call Sue; Richie by Gloria Dennis, an unworthy guy for sure; Poor Little Puppet by Cathy Carroll, self-explanatory; Lonely Sixteen by Janie Black, ditto it hurts to be sixteen; Jimmy Boy by Carol Shaw, it's always jimmy boy, how about marky boy?; Be My Boy by The Paris Sisters, okay, just call; Kookie Little Paradise by Jo Ann Campbell, I'll settle for the beach, blanket or not; and, Tonight's The Night by The Chiffons, this one hurts to the core, the not tonight core. I might add here, as I did with volume four, that as we have with volume five gone well over the one hundred songs mark in this series not only have we worked over, and worked over hard, the "speak to" problem but have now run up against the limits of songs worthy of mention, mention at the time or fifty years later, your choice. So you get the idea, this stuff could not "speak to me." Now you understand, right? Except, surprise, surprise foolish, behind the eight- ball, know-nothing youthful guy had it all wrong and should have been listening, and listening like crazy, to these lyrics because, brothers and sisters, they held the key to what was what about what was on girls' minds back in the day, and maybe now a little too, and if I could have decoded this I would have had, well, the beginning of knowledge, girl knowledge. Damn. But that is one of the virtues, and maybe the only virtue of age. Ya, and also get this- you had better get your do-lang, do-lang, your shoop, shoop, and your best be-bop, be-bop into that good night voice out and sing along to the lyrics here. This, fellow baby-boomers, was our teen angst, teen alienation, teen love youth and now this stuff sounds great.

Early Girls 5 is the last volume, apparently, in the British based Ace Records series of girl group sounds. If that is true, they couldn't have bowed out with a better collection. Early Girls 5 is a joy from start to finish, balancing the well known, or more appropriately the well anthologized tunes,such as Andrea Carroll's "It hurts to be sixteen", to the relatively unknown "Sneaky Sue". Even if you've never heard them before, the tunes in Early Girls 5 are, to a song, evocative slices of 60s pop. I especially liked Anita (Kerr) and the so n so's Joey baby (lovely in stereo)and Cathy Carroll's dramatic rendering of Poor Little Puppet. I really like this collection- you will too.

Early Girls Vol. 5 A great cd if you like those forgotten girls groups that struggled to get success in the 1960 to 1963 times before the British Invasion came through and wiped everybody out. A few of the songs say 10 or more are charted hits but I like the odd songs that were on respected record companies that were not big hits companies like Acto,Capitol.Mercury and more. This was a great choice I am glad I sent away for it.

These are from my era and I remember some of them but not all. By the time they got to volume 5 they included some pretty obscure songs and artists, but most are good as is the quality of recording. I also have volumes 1-4, and each one has songs that were highlights of the era, and some that just didn't quite get there. The whole collection is great and well worth having.

Great Girl groups from back in the day

ACE records is one of if not the TOP in releasing oldies cds. Not one dull track here, folks. The quality is superb and lots of pictures and details about each artist/song. Cant go wrong here.