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Frankie Lymon | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 5, 1989)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rhino / Wea
• ASIN: B0000032QZ
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #220,246 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Why Do Fools Fall In Love

2. Please Be Mine

3. Love Is A Clown

4. Am I Fooling Myself

5. I Want You To Be My Girl

6. I'm Not A Know It All

7. Who Can Explain

8. I Promise To Remember

9. ABC's Of Love

10. Share

11. I'm Not A Juvenile Delinquent

12. Baby Baby

13. Paper Castles

14. Teenage Love

15. Out In The Cold Again - Frankie Lymon

16. Goody Goody

17. Creation Of Love

18. Thumb Thumb - Frankie Lymon

19. Portable On My Shoulder

20. Little Bitty Pretty One - Frankie Lymon

Editorial Reviews

This CD is an out of print collectible! It is the original 1989 Rhino release. Catalog R2 70918. There is a drill hole through the case and booklet.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Of Many George Goldner Products, October 2, 2007

By 

AvidOldiesCollector (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Best of (Audio CD)

Erstwhile NY City garment dealer George Goldner's foray into the world of music recording would make a great film. Not only was he was one the earliest practitioners of "payola" with his late 1940s Tico label (where his biggest star was Latino jazz musician Tito Puente) but those he signed to record for his many other labels in the 1950's reads like a Who's Who of the early days of R&R.

On labels such as Rama, Gee, Gone, End, Roulette, Red Bird, and Blue Cat he recorded the likes of The Dubs, Cleftones, Flamingos, Chantels, Little Anthony & The Imperials, Starlighters, Crows, Wrens, Valentines, Five Crowns, Heartbeats, Channels, Isley Brothers, Trickles and, of course, Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers (among many more).

Lymon was just 14 when he, Herman Santiago, Jimmy Merchant, Joe Negroni and Sherman Games burst onto the scene in early 1956 with Why Do Fools Fall In Love? Billed to The Teenagers Featuring Frankie Lymon, it went all the way to # 1 R&B, where it stayed for five weeks) and # 6 Billboard Pop Top 100 b/w Please Be Mine on the Gee label. Of course it was at once covered by everyone and his aunt, but this was one time that the small label original won out, as versions by Gale Storm (# 9 Pop), The Diamonfs (# 12 Pop), and Gloria Mann (# 56 Pop) paled by comparison.

Later that spring, and with the billing now changed to Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, I Want You To Be My Girl began its climb to # 3 R&B/# 13 Top 100 b/w I'm Not A Know It All and it seemed as though Goldner had struck real gold this time with a group that was going to be consistently high on the lucrative Pop charts. But late that summer Who Can Explain, although finishing at a healthy # 7 R&B, while its flipside, I Promise To Remember, settled in at # 10 R&B, the performances on the Top 100 were disappointing as both registered at a mediocre # 57 (the A-side considered a "follow-along" hit at that).

By late fall the news got worse as The ABC's Of Love again did well on the R&B charts, going to # 8, but staggered to a # 77 Top 100 b/w Share. Following several failed singles, they next appeared on the charts in July 1957 when the prophetic Out In The Cold Again could only make the R&B charts, albeit at a healthy # 10 b/w Miracle In The Rain (omitted from this compilation). Then came a brief ray of hope in August when a cover of the old Benny Goodman tune, Goody Goody, managed to get to # 20 Top 100 b/w Creation Of Love. But it was shut out on the R&B charts and, in fact, they would never gain either chart again as a group. To this point all of their records had been backed by the Jimmy Wright orchestra,

In 1960, Frankie would emerge one more time as a solo artist when his cover of Little Bitty Pretty One went to # 58 Billboard Pop Hot 100 for Roulette b/w a re-recording of Creation Of Love. His backing orchestra was that of Rudy Traylor. Eight years later he would be dead at age 25 from a drug overdose.

This 1989 Rhino release has all the hits and most of the B-sides in excellent sound quality, and with the fold-out insert are six pages of background notes written by Bob Hyde, along with several nice photos of Frankie and the group. On the back of the disc is a partial discography of the contents, lacking only chart details.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why do birds sing so gay?, September 5, 2004

By 

Johnny Heering "trivia buff" (Bethel, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Best of (Audio CD)

This is a fine collection of 20 of Frankie Lymon's best songs, with and without the Teenagers. Frankie had a great voice, before it changed. In retrospect, it was a mistake to break him away from the Teenagers as a solo artist, but what are you gonna do? The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and here you have all their important recordings. What more do you want?