Customer Reviews

Doo-Wop Forever

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Nice price on this 2 CD set - no cheapies here - great recordings and lots and lots of great tracks you can't find anywhere else. If you love doo-wop you owe it to yourself to pick up this CD - this ain't the run of the mill -it's the real deal. Rare tracks from Five Satins, Belmonts, Harptones, Jive Five and tons more AND the recordings are superb. Well done.

One reviewer was a bit over-the-top in calling this a "rip-off." It is, for the most part anyway, classic group vocal harmony which, over the years, has taken on its own label of "Doo-Wop." This essentially was born out of what some in the jazz field call scat singing, although there the ad-lib vocals are varied in addition to being gibberish. In now classic songs like The Turbans' When You Dance (# 3 R&B/# 33 Billboard Pop Top 100 in late 1955), and In The Still Of The Night by The Five Satins about a year later (# 9 R&B/# 24 Billboard Pop Hot 100), the "doo wops" and "doo wahs" really brought the sound to national audiences.

It is a fact that a good portion of this 2-disc compilation contains some fairly obscure tracks by groups whose names will be familiar only to devoted collectors of all and anything smacking of Doo-Wop. Names like Lincoln Fig & The Dates, The Corvairs, Deltaires, Five Discs, Elchords, Fi-Tones, Paragons, and Dino & The Diplomats. And although none of them ever had a hit single to their credit, in some cases that lack of success can be traced to the fact they were handled by small operations with little or no funds for proper promotion.

One such was The Harptones who, despite having recorded what are now considered classics of the genre, such as Sunday Kind Of Love and Memories Of You (both included here), only ever had one lonely hit to their credit, the 1961 # 96 Hot 100 What Will I Tell My Heart for theCompanion label. This now legendary group could never even crack the R&B Top 100! For the record, the non-hit selections in this set are: Disc 1 - tracks 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14, 16 to 18: Disc 2 - 3, 6 to 8, 10, 11, 14, 16 to 20.

I also question the inclusion of A Million To One by Jimmy Charles (# 5 Hot 100/# 8 R&B in fall 1960 with backing by The Revelletts and the Phil Medley orchestra), and Maxine Brown's Funny (# 3 R&B/# 25 Hot 100 in 1961), as neither fit the description of Doo-Wop in any way, shape or form. It isn't as if there weren't literally hundreds of selections from which to choose!

But there are, at the same time, some of the very best Doo-Wop selections around, including a few considered extremely hard to find. In this category I would place Sweetest One, the very first hit for The Crests which came on the Joyce label before they went on to greater fame with Coed. With the backing of the Al Browne orchestra, it reached # 85 Pop Top 100 in the summer of 1957 billed to "The Crest's." They even provide the B-side on Disc 2 - My Juanita. Other rarities include Adorable by The Colts (# 11 R&B in November 1955), Mister Lonely by The Videls (# 73 Hot 100 in June 1960), and Brenda by The Cupids (# 57 Hot 100 in summer 1963).

The remaining hits included here are all readily found in numerous other compilations, some with better sound quality (this isn't BAD at all) and lengthier background notes (these are pretty skimpy for a two-disc compilation). The hits are: My True Story by The Jive Five (# 1 R&B/# 3 Hot 100 summer 1961); Can I Come Over Tonight? by The Velours (# 83 Top 100 summer 1957); Till Then by The Classics (# 20 Hot 100 July 1963); One Summer Night by The Danleers (# 4 R&B/# 7 Hot 100 summer 1958); You by The Aquatones (# 11 R&B/# 21 Top 100 in May 1958); You Were Mine by The Fireflies (# 21 Hot 100 fall 1959); Tell My Why by The Belmonts (# 18 Hot 100 in January 1961 and their first hit after a number backing Dion); Wishing For Your Love by The Voxpoppers (# 10 R&B/# 18 Top 100 April 1958); and Once In A While by The Chimes (# 11 Hot 100 in late 1960).

The best doo-wop music is like a full moon: beautiful and timeless. Put moonlight and doo-wop together, and you have something that's irresistible.

DOO-WOP FOREVER Vol. 1 presents 44 songs that touch upon all aspects of romantic love. The set opens with a dual-track "stereo" recording of the Top 40 hit, "My True Story" by the Jive Five. A few other biggies are sprinkled throughout the album, but the majority here are lesser-known tunes. Thus this set's major appeal: the freshness that passage of time has given to some really fine records.

Sound quality is excellent. Three pages of liner notes provide brief details on all the groups.
Running times:
CD ONE-- 44:25
CD TWO-- 48:30

"Doo-Wop Forever" is an early form of music that will never be duplicated. As the other reviewers have stated, these are mostly lesser known songs by well known groups. Starting in 1953, "A Sunday Kind of Love" remains a classic.
Even though most of these songs were released before 1957 (when I got hooked on Rock 'N Roll), there are enough here to make this a worthwhile double CD.
Songs like "Till Then", "Funny", "A Million To One", "You", "One Summer Night", "You Were Mine", "Tell Me Why" (after Dion and The Belmonts went their separate ways), "Once In Awhile", and a song I never thought I'd ever hear again, "Lullabye of the Bells" by The Deltairs will always remain dear in my heart.

THOUGH THE ARTISTS WERE FAMILIAR THE SONGS WEREN'T. MOST OF THEM SOUNDED LIKE THE OTHER SIDE OF THEIR HIT RECORDINGS. WHO KNOWS???