Customer Reviews

One Hit Wonders of the 60's, Vol. 2

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Another really outstanding disc in the One Hit Wonders series, Volume 2 pulls out all the musical stops. There is the garage band sound of "Let It Out(Let It All Hang Out)", the bubblegummy but very good sound of "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" and the powerful, nearly big band sound of Merilee Rush's beautiful "Angel of the Morning".

The disc features a rare version of "Hang On, Sloopy" which includes a verse removed from the commercial release (the song needed to be shortened to fit the standard radio play slots of the day). There is also the wonderful and hard to find ballad "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye", a massively successful 1967 cut that strongly echoed the sound of the 1957 through 1962 doowop era.

The variety of music on this disc is breathtaking, and the superior mastering makes it sound better than the first time we heard it on AM radio. This is another of Rhino's many entries into the "Don't Miss It" category. Very highly recommended.

Many of you 50-somethings like me are likely building CD collections featuring the music of your youth. Volume Two in the One Hit Wonders series is a must for your collection. The songs featured in this set were on top forty radio in the 60s and early 70s (before top forty became a dirty word). Among the gems are the McCoy's Hang on Sloopy. Lots of garage attitude in that gem originally issued on Bang Records. And I thought I'd never find the Fifth Estate's Ding Dong the Witch is Dead on CD. Here it is though! Other highlights are Merilee Rush's Angel of the Morning which makes you wonder why Juice Newton even bothered with it in the eighties! And more attitude in the Hombres' Let It All Hang Out - a title that became a national catch phrase in the late sixties! There is also the superb blue-eyed soul of Expressway to Your heart by the Soul Survivors. There really are no bad cuts on this set (although the inclusion of Then You Can Tell me Goodbye is a little puzzling). This is by far the best CD in the One Hit Wonders series. There are still lots of "one hit wonders" from the sixties yet to be brought to CD. It would be great to see more volumes added to this set. If you want to add Derek, Love or Crazy Elephant to your collection, this is the one for you!

Vol. 2 of Bartley's anthology of one-hit wonders isn't quite as consistently good as the first, but it's still a fine balance of obscuros and hard-to-find well-known hits. It was great to have Robert Knight's original '66 version of "Everlasting Love" at my fingertips, for example, as well as Merilee Rush's "Angel of the Morning."
You can find a couple of the hits elsewhere ("Hang On, Sloopy" can be found in several places, while "Expressway to Your Heart" is on the three-CD "The Philly Sound" Philadelphia International collection), but this was, for years, the only CD where you could find the killer white soul shouter "No Good to Cry" by Connecticut band The Wildweeds (now on a killer 2002 collection called "No Good to Cry: The Best of The Wildweeds"). The song, written and sung by the teenage Al Anderson (before his long run with NRBQ and his successful career as a country songwriter), charted big in its home state (where I grew up) and in the South, but just made the upper 80s in Billboard; you fans from the rest of the country will wonder just how the hell this didn't become one of the all-time great chart hits.

This is a truly superb collection of hard-to-finds and comes with the usual outstanding Rhino sonics.<>
However...The McCOYS a ONE HIT WONDER?? That's laughable. The McCoys had 3 songs make the TOP 20 and "Fever" made it to number 7. That's a real hit in anyone's book!

To add to the above reviews, this disc also includes a version of "Hang On Sloopy" with an extra verse that was edited out of the single. Dick Bartley's productions always try to go the extra mile when searching for the masters for their compilations. Quite simply, if you like the songs, and they are not in your collection, then buy it. It's all original tunes by the original artists...and it's on the Rhino label, meaning quality production and good liner notes and pictures.

The cut "No God To Cry" by the Wildweeds brings back fond memories of listening to Hartford, Connecticut's now defunct WPOP. The illuminating liner notes from pop obsessed Dick Bartley make this a fun package .

A curious selection of songs holds up well on this 12-track collection of one-hit wonders. Most of the songs included are probably littering the attics of many avid 60s pop record buyers ("Cinnamon" by Derek, "Expressway to Your Heart" by Soul Survivors, and "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'" by Crazy Elephant). Others are just too innocently campy to dislike ("Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead" by Fifth Estate, and "Morning Girl" by Neon Philharmonic). Despite the mysterious inclusion of a low charter ("No Good to Cry" by the Wildweeds), this CD is an excellent buy, and a perfect companion to the equally listenable first volume.

I've noticed a lot of collections like this have songs in them that don't sound like the songs I remember. This is disappointing. If I knew there were so many songs like this, I wouldn't have bought it.

They definately are wonders. Wonderful that is. Great cd, bought for our DJ biz, but it seems to end up in my car alot!
Can't get enough of them!

This CD is not only improperly titled - Dick Bartley's Original Rock & Roll Oldies Show Presents One Hit Wonders Of The '60s, Vol. 2 - it does not contain all original hit versions. Why does Bartley keep putting out things that are misleading? Of the 12 different artists included here only The Hombres, Crazy Elephant, The Fifth Estate, and The Wildweeds were true one-hit wonders.

All the others had at least one more Billboard Pop Hot 100 hit and, in the case of The McCoys and The Soul Survivors, fairly significant other hits. The latter, for example, had a Top 40 [# 33] with Explosion In Your Soul in early 1968, and The McCoys had two - Fever [# 7 in late 1965] and Come On Let's Go [# 22 in early 1966], in addition to six other Top 100 charters. Derek also had a # 16 with Mr. Bass Man in 1963 as Johnny Cymbal [his real name], along with two other Top 100 charters. The others may not have had any more Top 40 hits, but in each case they did chart more than once.

In the rather extensive fold-our liner notes Bartley says, for The McCoys, "But what about Fever and Come On Let's Go - didn't they follow Hang On Sloopy into the Top 40? OK, technically you've got me, but we've found a unique one-of-a-kind, long-unavailable version of Hang On Sloopy that deserves inclusion here." Perhaps so, but to collectors of original hit versions this is not acceptable. Especially when there's nothing on the OUTSIDE of the package to warn you.

For The Soul Survivors he describes Expressway To Your Heart as "the group's only Top 10 hit, in the fall of 1967." So, you might say to yourself, we'll cut him some slack and allow that he's zeroing in only on Top 10 material to define "one-hit wonders." But then, of course, you realize that the hit by The Fifth Estate topped out at # 11, those by The Hombres and Crazy Elephant reached # 12 only, Robert Knight's peaked at # 13, and No Good To Cry by The Wildweeds barely made the Top 100 at # 88 - far below the threshold positions of many of the songs he doesn't consider hits. So that doesn't wash either.

Why not just call it "a random collection of 1960's hits" and leave it that - with an explanation on the reverse that they are NOT all the original hit versions? If you don't care about such things this is an OK album. But for collectors like me it's annoying to say the least.