Customer Reviews

Hard To Find 45s On CD: Vol. 1: 1955-60

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Some hard to find stuff here. Also some hard to find **stereo** stuff here. If you want to hear the flawless stereo version of Born To Late, this is the CD you want. If you want to hear Good Timin' in stereo, this is the CD you want. A note on the back of the CD states:

All tracks AAD, digitally transferred from original analog master tapes by Fred Meyer at Polygram Studios."

The sound quality does indeed sound like these came from the master tapes. I don't believe you will ever hear these songs sound better. At the time of this posting, Amazon did not have a track listing, here it is:

(1) The House Of Blue Lights - Chuck Miller (mono)
(2) Confidential - Sonny Knight (mono)
(3) A Teenager's Romance - Ricky Nelson (mono)
(4) You're My One And Only Love - Ricky Nelson (mono)
(5) Wishing For Your Love - The Voxpoppers (mono)
(6) (It's Been A Long Time) Pretty - Baby Gino & Gina (mono)
(7) One Summer Night - The Danleers (mono)
(8) Summertime, Summertime - The Jamies (stereo)
(9) Born Too Late - The Poni Tails (stereo)
(10) Big Bopper's Wedding - The Bopper (mono)
(11) Sorry (I Ran All The Way Home) - The Impalas (stereo)
(12) Broken-Hearted Melody - Sarah Vaughan (stereo)
(13) Teen Angel - Mark Denning (stereo)
(14) Lonely Blue Boy - Conway Twitty (stereo)
(15) Handy Man - Jimmy Jones (mono)
(16) Good Timin' - Jimmy Jones (stereo)

(17) Cradle Of Love - Johnny Preston (mono)
(18) Image Of A Girl - The Safaris (mono)
(19) Ta Ta - Clyde McPhatter (stereo)
(20) Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear To Tread) - Brook Benton (stereo)
(21) Corinna, Corinna - Ray Peterson (stereo)

Here, Eric Records, the big little reissue company, fires the opening salvo in its "Hard To Find 45's..." series of compilation CD's. This first volume presents titles from 1955 through 1960 and really tickles the musical memories of listeners of early American rock and roll ditties.

While not all these titles may at first seem to qualify as "hard-to-find", finding even these popular ones in the sound quality presented here is truly the "hard-to-find" part. Beyond these more familiar tracks, fitting the hard-to-find-at-all bill are such tunes as Chuck Miller's "House Of Blue Lights", the Voxpoppers' "Wishing For Your Love" and "It's Been A Long Time Pretty Baby" by Gino and Gina.

Since several of these tracks are pre-stereo (pre-'58) era, they by necessity appear in mono but many of the later ones (tracks 8,9,11-14,16,19-21) jump out in wide, dynamic stereo. Completing the package are interesting liner notes on each of the included tracks.

Eric comes out with both barrels firing with this new series and shows the majors how it should be done. Top-of-the-line quality here for fans of the music from America's love affair with rock and roll in its infancy.

This first in Bill Buster's series of hard-to-find 45s on CD sets the tone for all that follow on Eric by combining a mix of reasonably-easy-to-locate selections with some that take a bit of digging, and others that pop out at you in the "at last" category.

It also establishes a much-appreciated regular gift of comprehensive liner notes, in this instance written by Fred Bronson, author of The Billboard Book Of Number One Hits and Billboard's Hottest Hot 100 Hits, as well as the "Chart Beat" column in Billboard Magazine.

In Volume 1, covering the period 1955-1960, the ones that might take some digging include Ricky Nelson's You're My One And Only Love, [It's Been A Long Time] Pretty Baby by Gino & Gina, and both of Jimmy Jones' big hits - Handy Man and Good Timin'.

In my estimation, the real eye-poppers are Confidential by Sonny Knight, Wishing For Your Love by The Voxpoppers, The Danleers' One Summer Night, Ta Ta by Clyde McPhatter, and especially Corinna, Corinna by Ray Peterson. You may THINK you've discovered that on some other compilation, but believe me, you should check it out carefully because, if any one song has been re-recorded to death, Corinna, Corinna is the one. Here you KNOW it's the original version which hit # 9 in 1960.

The sound quality is excellent.

I do not have anything to add to the positive reviews. The entire series is indeed a goldmine!

Go to google.com and/or gemm.com. OR to ericrecords and there you will find it possible to buy this one!

Enjoy!

" Hey Jimmy have you heard the latest Sonny Knight 45, Confidential, its all slow, smooth, and girl close hold-able, and maybe even kissable, " yelled Sammy Rizzo across the seventh period study hall classroom. " Christ, Sammy Whammy, where do you come up with those words, 'close hold-able,' what does that mean, you're poking her," yelled Jimmy, Jimmy Cullen, back at his old friend. Just then Miss Wilmot, that old bitch thought Sammy, came into the room signaling lock-down, prison lock-down and that there would be no more talking, no more talking, period, except of course for the flurry, the massive flurry of notes, between boys and girls, girls and girls, boys and their confederates, boy or girl. Confederates like Sammy Rizzo and Jimmy Cullen, who from appearances would seem like an unlikely pair, except they had been friends, well, since way back in old Clintonville Elementary School days.

Jimmy, long, long and slender, wiry, sneaky wiry if you decided that he was an easy target in a hard fistfight, although all bets were off if you decided on switchblades, knives that every boy, every smart boy, carried, carried concealed on his person somewhere, and let's just leave it at that. Carrying just in case he caught trouble at school in some dark back hall, or more likely, found himself on some foreign corner, some corner boy corner without his boys, and some king hell corner boy king decided he didn't like your looks, or just didn't like the idea of you on his corner. And Jimmy also had a handsome face set off by deep-blue eyes, a cross between Paul Newman movie star glamour eyes and the steel-blue eyes of "Stacks McGee," a serial killer now waiting to fry up in the death row of the state pen, if the appeals process ever ended. And long eyelashes, girl-driving crazy long eye lashes, to go with those eyes. Ya, Jimmy would never, probably until he was old and grey and maybe not even then, lack for female company, if that is what he wanted.

And Sammy, "Sammy Whammy," Rizzo, the Whammy part given a few years back in junior high school when the rhyming simon craze swept through Clintonville Junior High School and all the girls spent all their time making up names, double names, for every boy, and some boys did it too although not Jimmy and Sammy. So the Whammy part stuck to Sammy, like it or not, which he did. Sammy, some Sancho Panza sad-sack dumpling, stocky, hell no, kind of fat, with a non-descript face, except that it seemed to always need a shave even at eight in the morning, and no description eyes. Except that Sammy never lacked for girls, at least one date girls, or maybe two. See Sammy was the max daddy be-bop 45 record king hell king of the town of Clintonville, maybe of all Dewar County if someone decided to count. And so Sammy could use that old gag on the girls, on the be-bop rock and roll record-starved girls, about coming up to see his etchings after a date, except he actually had the records. Had them so it seemed as soon as they came off the presses. So he could work his magic, let's say, for example, on some Born Too Late-crazed girl, some girl who liked an older guy, a guy, who had no time for, well, jail bait, and be the soul of compassion about her woes while the 45 played in the background. See it worked for that one date, maybe two, until she got tired of the song, or found a new boyfriend or that older guy said the hell with it and took his chances.

But see Sammy did not have those hundreds, seemingly hundreds, of 45s just by accident, or just by his parents having deep pockets to allow him to buy whatever he wanted right off the presses. No way. Sammy Whammy was from hunger. What Sammy was also master of, king hell king master of, was the clip. The clip from Bugsy's Big Tent Record Shop up in Clintonville Center (in the heart of downtown Clintonville, according to Bugsy's ads on the local 24/7/365 rock and roll radio station, WJDA, where his ads ran about every six seconds, or so it seemed, alternating with Benny's Car Hop, a drive-in restaurant that also was owned by Bugsy).

See, here is how it worked, and this is where friend Jimmy came in (and also why Jimmy didn't care if he had three, or three hundred, records as background for one of his dates, his girl crazy eyelashes dates. He could just cop one from Sammy). Let's say they wanted Jimmy Jones' Handy Man (a favorite of Sammy's, he had two copies of it because the first one got worn out from working his gag about his being a handy man- and Christ, everybody knew about it because it got all around school, all around Monday morning girls' lav talk school to be exact, the girls went for it, strictly one date went for it). Jimmy and Sammy would make the couple of mile trek to Bugsy's, usually on foot since car times were few and far between in the Cullen and Rizzo households, especially for no work, no want to work, clip artist kids. Most of the time Bugsy's daughter , Cindy, would be working out front helping customers, showing people to the record booths to play the latest, or ring up the sales.

And here was the beauty of it, Cindy, fellow classmate of theirs, was nothing but head over heels crazy for Jimmy, or maybe it was those long eyelashes and would get a little confused, or something, when Jimmy stepped up and asked her a question about a record. Maybe a weepy one like Mark Dinning's Teen Angel, about a dizzy teenage dame who, after being led to safety from a car stranded on a railroad by her boyfriend, got the bright idea of tempting the fates and going back for the boy's high school ring. She was last seen in heaven, or somewhere like that. Just then Sammy was looking for Ricky Nelson's A Teenager's Romance because his upcoming date was with a girl all hung up of that twerp. So while Jimmy and Cindy were talking Sammy went to the record bin, grabbed the 45, and slipped it under his shirt. Easy, almost like taking candy from a baby. No just like it.

But being the king of the 45 record night ain't easy, or maybe better, is filled with all kind of funny things. One time Jimmy and Sammy were in Bugsy's for the clip and they were going through their normal paces. Jimmy started talking animatedly to Cindy about Johnny Preston's Cradle of Love, and really laying it on in a way that made Cindy think he was making a play for her, a big play. Now Sammy was in looking for Ray Peterson's Corrina, Corrina for a hot date. He grabbed the 45 okay but as he signaled to Jimmy that the deal was done and went to leave the store Cindy called him over and directed him to follow her to a certain record bin. Jimmy, meanwhile, waited outside. At the bin she put a record under his shirt and said, "That's for Jimmy." Sammy rushed out the store, called to Jimmy to move quickly, and when they got around the corner Sammy pulled out the Cindy picked record. Ya, a pristine Cradle of Love.