Customer Reviews

Nipper's Greatest Hits - The 50's Volume 2

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The beauty of this compilation is the wide range of atist and song.

If it was a hit in the fifties for RCA then it is here, or on volume 1.

The Nipper series is perhaps unique in this respect and that is what gives the whle series it graet strength.

Often, even when you do not recognise a track from the name on the play list when it comes out of the CD you think "ahh that one".

This is even true fr the 1920's and 30's compilations in the series.

Very entertaining and great value for money the whole set is very well worth owning and you will definitly come across much material not found elsewhere.

sound quality is also excellent.

Continuing from my review of Volume 1 of this two-volume set covering the 1950's, you really shouldn't have one without the other - unless, of course, you merely want one of the volumes for a specific tune or two.

This one offers, in order, two from 1950, one each from 1951 and 1952, three from 1953, one from 1954, three each from 1956 and 1957, two from 1958, and four from 1959. Just 12 in this volume were Top 10 in the Hot 100 [as opposed to 15 in Volume 1], although three [tracks 12-14] just missed, settling for the # 11 slot in each case. Also, only five were # 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 [tracks 2,7,9,11,and 15], as opposed to seven in Volume 1.

Four of the tracks are novelty tunes [tracks 2 - we never did find out what that darn "Thing" was - 8, 9, and 18], the last the hilarious take-off by Homer And Jethro on Johnny Horton's The Battle Of New Orleans. Hank Snow's I'm Moving On was only a Country charter - but what a hit, spending 44 weeks on those charts, 21 of them at the # 1 position in 1950. And RCA Victor didn't want to release it at all! One of the better stories in musical history.

Again you get six pages of track-by-track notes written by the same threesome as in Volume 1, and in terms of hard-to-find selections, these would include tracks 2,5,17, and 20 - the last of which gives you both parts to Shout by The Isley Brothers. Only Part 1 made the pop Hot 100, reaching # 47 in late 1959 [it would chart again in 1962, going to # 94], and for some strange reason it was completely shut out on the R&B charts, But it did sound the clarion call for what was to come in about six years.

As mentioned in the review of Volume 1, attempting to put out 40 RCA Victor hits as representative of "Nipper's Greatest" for the 1950's was a little foolhardy back in 1988, but if you ignore the misleading title, this and the first volume make a nice pair in your musical library. You might want to get copies before they fall into the no-longer-available category.

I have this cd in my collection. I think is a great collection of the 50's hits, although I was hoping for more early Rock & Roll. But then again, RCA wasn't really a R & R label. The only major rock star to record for RCA was Elvis Presley. I enjoyed Canadian Sunset, Mama Look a Boo Boo, and Shout thoroughly, and of course Don't Be Cruel. I would like to see a Nipper's Great Hits of the 80's.