Customer Reviews

Little Town Flirt/Handy Man

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BGO records of the U.K. offers up this two-fer containing the earlier Big-Top era "Little Town Flirt" album and the rejuvenated Del Shannon's Amy "Handy Man" album.

The "... Flirt" album presents some of his best material from his earlier hit-making days. Of note is that many of the songs here (tracks 1-3,5,7,9-12) are the rare stereo versions and while some may say they are inferior to the single mixes, they have a sound stage and fidelity that really brings the material alive.

The "Handy Man" album is the first of Del's second wind string of hits on Amy. These tracks are all in mono. While Del's classic sound remains on this group of tracks, there is little original material of the quality of his Big Top era. It does present the grittier "Handy Man" Jimmy Jones remake and the first U.S.-charted Lennon-McCartney tune, "From Me To You".

Although both albums have been taken from original masters, the sound quality is better on the "Flirt" album sides (the Amy stuff has always been saturated-sounding). With so many greatest hits collections available on Shannon, this piece is notable for the "Flirt" album - both for content and sound quality.

Little Town Flirt was re-released a few years ago. Many biographers considered it Del's best album. Indeed, the biggest hits are found on it (Runaway and Hats Off to Larry as well as the title track). "Handy Man" was cut during the "Amy" label years. This was when Del had the Royaltones as his backup band. In Del's opinion, these were the best guys he got to perform with. While there are several forgettable covers, "Give Her Lots of Lovin'" and "Mary Jane" are very good Del originals. If you want to get one Del album that is not just greatest hits fare, and prefer the early years, this is an excellent choice. For collectors, this is the only way I know of to get the "Handy Man" tracks on CD.

This twofer is Shannon's 2nd & 3rd original L.P.'s.
These two L.P.'s for the most part, continue the sound that Shannon started with.
This is the sound he is best remember for.
His sound changed considerablely in his later albums.

There are elevan original songs of these 24 that are written/co-written by Shannon.
This original music adds greatly to the freshness of these albums.
Seven songs were co-written with a Mr. McKenzie.
As the story goes,
"McKenzie was a black guy who turned up at one of Del's recording sessions
with half a dozen songs that he had begun to write and could not finish off.
Following the completion of these tracks, Mr. McKenzie just disappeared".

Four songs charted from these two L.P.'s, three b-sides are here also:
1. "Little town flirt" 1962.
2. "Two kinds of teardrops" b/w "Kelly" 1963.
3. "From me to you" b/w "Two silhouettes" 1963.
4. "Handy man" b/w "Give her lots of lovin'"

The other tracks are all good supportive songs
that make this twofer a TOTAL listening pleasure.
All tracks are very much the SOUND and FEEL of the early 60's.

This is some of Del Shannon's best before his departure
to the 'muffled' sounding productions of his music in the later 60's and beyond.

All original recordings from the early 1960s. (1962, 1963, & 1964)
If you like the early 60's music, you'll need this remnant of that fabric.
This c.d. is nicely presented, it includes six pages of liner notes,
and sounds excellent. (Mono recordings)
Produced by BGO (Beat Goes On Records) in 1998, Suffolk, England. U.K.

This CD release puts together Del Shannon's third and fourth album. Both albums are great, but quite different, especially soundwise. Somehow the the "Little Town Flirt" album outshines the "Handy Man" album, by having the cleanest sound.

There are great many tracks on both albums, but again "Little Town Flirt" comes out as the most consistent. With the 3 great hits "Little Town Flirt", "Two Silhouettes" and "Two Kinds of Teardrops", which all have kept their charm over the years - because they are such good tunes - and I love the female harmony vocals on those three. Other very memorable tracks on this album are Shannon's two original ballads "Happiness" and "Kelly". His cover of Roy Orbison's "Sweet Dreams" and "Hey Baby" are fine recordings - in fact, there are no real low points on the album.

The sound changes on the "Handy Man", where some tracks sound somewhat muddy. The single hits on this album are the great Phil Spector sounding title track and the pretty ordinary "Mary Jane". Among the album tracks there are a couple of nice Shannon original ballads - both quite Merseybeat inspired. There is a nice try at Roy Orbison's "Crying", which works great until the falsetto part
- here it is really miles behind Orbison's original. The closing track "Twist and Shout" has a great raw guitar solo, and makes up a worthy finale om a slightly uneven album.

In spite of the relative flaws of "Handy Man" - a great release.