Customer Reviews

Shelley!/Things We Did Last Summer

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In 1958 Shelley Fabares appeared on the hit ABC domestic comedy "The Donna Reed Show" as Mary Stone, the young teenage daughter, whose younger brother Jeff was played by former Mousketeer Paul Petersen. Mary Stone was the personification of the perfect daughter ("Princess" whined too much on "Father Knows Best") and was eventually asked by the show's producers to work with Colpix Records, the label for Columbia Pictures Television. Fabares's debut release was "Johnny Angel," a typical girl group type of song that atypically reached #1 on the Billboard pop charts in early 1962. Of course, a hit single meant an album and Fabares released two during that year, "Shelley!" and "Things We Did Last Summer," both of which are collected on this CD. How is this different from a greatest hits collection of Shelley Fabares's songs? Remember that in the Sixties lots of artists released singles that were never put on albums (just think of the Beatles with their two volumes of "Past Masters"). Plus she did record one more album, "Teen-Age Triangle." Fabares only had a few more singles that did anything: "Johnny Loves Me" (#21), "The Things We Did Lat Summer" (#46), and "Ronnie Call Me When You Get a Chance" (#72). Those titles show you exactly what sort of songs you are going to find on these two albums. Fabares was never really serious about a music career and was more interested in parlaying her television acting career into doing movies with Elvis Presley, although most people remember her today from playing Craig T. Nelson's girlfriend and wife on "Coach." The appeal here is simply unpretentious "girl group" songs about teenage yearning, including covers of "Hi-Lilli, Hi-Lo," "Breakng Up Is Hard to Do," "Sealed With a Kiss," and "Johnny Get Angry." So what if Shelley Fabares was no Leslie Gore? She was not trying to be and these albums certainly stand up better than a lot of other albums recorded by television stars.

Note On Sound Quality

All 22 tracks are true stereo and sound quality is very good. Had these tracks been in mono, I would have really trashed Collectibles on this review. This CD is a reissue of two LP's from 1962 (1) Shelly (2) The Things We Did Last Summer.

A decent reissue of "The Things We Did Last Summer" has eluded me for over 20 years. I obtained an import LP reissue of this LP in the early eighties, but it was mastered from an original LP, tics and pops included. Then about three years ago, I found an import CD that contained most songs on this LP, but the sound was mastered poorly - again mastered from an LP.

I did some research with some knowledgeable people in the industry. Turns out that "some" of the original Shelley Fabares Colpix master tapes are available and others are missing. Most noticeably, the master tapes for "The Things We Did Last Summer" are probably missing. This explains why there is some surface noise on a couple of tracks on this CD, indicating they were copied from an LP. If you listen on headphones carefully, you will hear some surface noise at the beginning of track 20. Hardly noticeable on casual listening. I suspect the 22 tracks on this CD were mastered from a combination of master tapes and original LP's.

That all being said, I must give credit to Collectibles for making this available at all. I have no problem with mastering from an LP if that's all that's available. They did a pretty good job on mastering all 22 tracks. Collectibles did not include any information on the CD about the sources used for mastering this CD. For that, they deserve a slap on the wrist. Even more incredibly, there is no stereo note on the back of the CD. Since the entire CD is stereo, it seems this would be somewhat of a selling point. Someone from Collectibles (Rhino) will eventually read this, why not post a review and explain what sources were used for this reissue.

This two album Cd compilation is a very good sampling of Shelley Fabares (pronounced Fab-ray)and her attempt at singing. Her "Johnny Angel" was a number one smash in the summer of 1962. These songs were recorded when Shelley played (Mary Stone),Donna Reed's daughter on ABC-TV's Donna Reed Show 1960-1965. Shelley says in the liner notes "I couldn't sing, but the people at COLUMBIA Pictures and COLPIX Records insisted that I make an album." It was said that in the making of "Johnny Angel" Shelley recorded the song over 30 times and parts from every one of those 30 takes is used in the final product. But hearing Shelley sing is delightful. Anyone who remembers the early 60's will want to have this CD, simply because it's the homogenized way things were then and it brings back some great memories. By the way, you'll notice that Shelley is backed by some very good musicans and singers. If you are a Shelley Fabares fan, this will be a great CD for you.

Most fans of Shelley Fabares would appreciate this CD, with her singing of songs like "Love Letters," "Hi Lilli-Hi Lo," "Johnny Loves Me," and of course, "Johnny Angel" (among others). Certain of the songs on this CD, however, are somewhat novel (i.e., "Very Unlikely" with Paul Peterson) or perhaps not quite fit for SF (such as the fast-paced "Palisades Park"). So, if you're a fan of the actress, or the type of music, you'll probably like this compilation CD; if not, you may want to pass.

I can't find any reason to choose this cd. The cd contains a few of good Fabares songs, but most just are tasteless and superfluous covers of hits like Locomotion, Roses are Red, See you in September.
Anybody who wants the real good music Fabares has made should go out and get the cd "Best of Shelley Fabares". It just contains her best original songs.

I was a couple of years old when these songs were popular and my six older sisters taught me how to dance to these songs. I love them and you will love this music too if you are 50 or older. LOVE IT!

I spent my teen years listening to these songs and I have to tell the younger generations that music like this was and will be forever classic. The lyrics are romantic and the music was well written. Take time to listen and hear what the 50's something crowd called Music. Thanks for your consideration.

A very good collection-but only very good. How could they omit "Big Star"?

While not the world's greatest singer Shelley Fabares compensates for this with Charm Plus. I think that she is Shelley Fabulous.

Noone will ever confuse Shelley Fabares with an astute, gifted musical talent. But then, how many of the early '60's hitmakers were? This is sweet, pleasant and quite innocent fun, and still good entertainment. Shelley is definitely charismatic and it comes through on record even when everything else seems painfully mediocre.