Customer Reviews

Gene Pitney - More Greatest Hits

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This completes the Rhino "Anthology" by giving you the rest of the Top 40 US singles AND his remake of "Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart" from 1989. The only problem? The original recording of "Something's" is missing the chorus track!!! I had to buy a British budget CD with the song because it was driving me nuts knowing it wasn't on this release. Obviously an engineer screwed up somewhere. =(

I special ordered this out-or-print CD in order to get Gene Pitney's Donna Means Heartbreak. For some reason, this very haunting melody is hard to find on any collection.

Within this CD, I also found a handful of other songs he did that came back to memory, such as Today's Teardrops and Princess in Rags. There are also some I never heard. These were evidently done at the time of his waning popularity.

Gene's songs stand out a lot because of his special vocal effects. But one can really appreciate their worth by listening to renditions from other artists. Johnny Sandon, the British rocker, also did Donna Means Heartbreak. His style is straight, without Gene's vocal embellishments. But his is also an outstanding rendition. So is an instrumental version of Liberty Valance that I heard recently.

I am grateful for the 40-50 Gene Pitney songs I now have in my personal collection, even though I top-rate less than half of them. Hope this particular CD gets back in print soon, so that other aging fans (and some new ones) can have the same opportunity.

This CD was released as a companion to Rhino Records Gene Pitney Anthology CD. All the songs here are different than the ones on the Rhino CD. Most of Gene's big hits were included on Rhino's CD, so you get a lot of lesser known songs here. In fact, there are only three legitimate American hits here, which are "I Must Be Seeing Things", "Princess in Rags" and "Backstage". The rest of the album features flop singles and album cuts. However, I must say that the person who chose these songs did an excellent job. These may not be hit songs, but they are good songs. If you already have the Gene Pitney Anthology, and you want more of the "Rockville Rocket", the CD would be a good one to get.

While many of the tunes on this CD may not be familiar to listeners, the voice most certainly will be. Gene Pitney's music is unmistakable. If you're a Pitney fan and already own a Pitney Greatest Hits-type collection, this piece makes an excellent complement as it goes beyond the charted hits with little duplication with other compilations. Beyond the five top-100 charted singles are several b-sides, album cuts and other singles, some not issued, including songs that were much bigger hits in the U.K. than domestically. Among the finds here is Pitney's version of his self-penned "Hello Mary Lou", a song taken into the top 10 by Ricky Nelson. Pitney's last major hit in the U.K., "Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart" appears along with a 1989 remake of the song as a duet with Marc Almond.

Sound quality is overall very good with all tracks having been taken from original stereo masters with the exception of 3, 4 and 6 that appear in mono. The eight-page liner notes booklet provides some musical background focusing on the included songs.

Since the issue of this disc, Varese Vintage has come out with an excellent 25-track greatest hits piece that contains some of the lesser hits contained here. Even with owning that CD, this piece provides a deeper experience of one of early rock's greatest voices and talents.