Customer Reviews

The Rock 'n' Roll Era: 1960 Still Rockin' (Time Life Music)

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

 

 

The heavily-promoted and massive Time-Life "mail order only" series of CDs of about 15 - 20 years ago constantly reminded you that "you can't get these in any store" and seemed intent, at the time, to corner the market on everything from the Big Band Era to Pop, Country, R&B, Soul, Rockabilly and R&R Oldies. In addition to single artist releases, they put out year by year volumes covering the best hits of 1940 to (as far as I can tell) 1969, interspersed with theme releases such as The Unforgetable `50s, The Late `50s and R&B Gems II, among many many more.

Since there was little real competition in terms of sound quality and program notes at the time, I suppose quite a few bought into the hype, although it was an expensive venture since they also charged quite a bit more for each disc than the normal going rate. Now here we are with options like Ace Of London, Eric Records, Jasmine, Bear Family, Collectables, Collector's Choice, Rhino, Varese-Sarabande, Razor & Tie, etc., and suddenly these Time-Life releases are popping up for sale all over the place, and mostly at prices considerably less than when they were first issued.

A glance at the contents will tell you, if you are at all familiar with the distributors just mentioned, that there are now many such compilations around containing everything you see here and with even better sound reproduction and much more detailed liner notes/discographies.

Even so, if what your seeking specifically happens to be among the contents here, rest assured that it is the original rendition, that the sound quality is fine and that the notes, although nothing like you'd get from, say, Ace of London, are informative.

In its day, this one did offer several selections that were regarded back then as extremely difficult to find, such as the tracks by Jesse Hill, Skip & Flip, Ron Holden, Barret Strong, The Paradons and Bobby Marchan. Now all, of course, are available on any number of new compilations, especially ones like Ace's Golden Age Of American Rock 'N' Roll series.