Customer Reviews

Sounds of the City: New York Area Doo Wop 1956-1966

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

 

 

Let's hit the title highlights, because that's the main thing -- "Sherry," "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," "Barbara-Ann," "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Come a Little Closer," "A Teenager in Love," "16 Candles" and "There's a Moon Out Tonight."

To see this three-CD set in a store or read about it here and assume it's some sleazy cheesy bad recording out of one of those annoying infomercials would be to do oneself a disservice. The sound is great, the liner notes are extensive and reverential and the anthology's purpose is clearly to give listeners a good idea of the scene rather than a greatest hits collection.

Glad to own it.

As a life long fan of Doo Wop, This 3 cd collection captures the Doo Wop Sounds of The New York City Area 1956-1966. Fantastic selections! All Original Recordings! Great Listening Pleasure over and over again! Highly Recommended!

This comes from someone who was born in the 1980s: I love it! I'm a huge fan of the genre and especially enjoyed the rare Dion recording. The set comes with a colorful booklet that tells you all about the artists (all of whom are from the tri-state area, I think) and the songs. Granted that this is NY-specific set, it does not contain some of the other national hits, but I wanted something exactly like that.

Sure, there are plenty of hits here. About half of these songs (29 to be exact) placed in Billboard's pop top 40--and five of them were No. 1's. But fans of doo-wop won't be buying this for the hits. For every Dion and the Belmonts and The Four Seasons, there are equally great tracks by obscure artists like The Quotations and The Four Cheers. (The latter group is so obscure that they don't even know who any of the group's members were!)

So what you are getting is a pretty good overview of mostly white doo-wop groups covering a ten-year span. Many of these artists didn't get national attention, but were local favorites recording for small independent labels like End, Rust and Gone.

There is an informative 40-page booklet with an introduction by Dion Di Muci, background on each of the 59 tracks, and pictures of nearly every artist. And while this is a Time-Life compilation, the back cover states that disc 1 is by Rhino Custom Products and disc 2 is by EMI Special Markets. Each track is the original recording and the sound quality is excellent. (The lone exception is Dion's previously unreleased 1956 home tape recording of "Rooftop Serenade.")

I already own Rhino's essential THE DOO WOP Box (1993), but SOUND OF THE CITY is a nice addition. And for the price--it cost me about the price of a Happy Meal--it was a no-brainer. RECOMMENDED [Disc 1 - 45:46, Disc 2 - 45:45, Disc 3 - 52:26]

Played a hunch when I bought this. Already owned 90% of the known hit songs...but was it worth it for the unknown and obscure stuff? OH, YES it was. This collection is not only fabulously underpriced -- it would be worthwhile just for the enclosed booklet telling you all the little-known facts. Listened to it the day I went to see "Jersey Boys" -- what an ideal segue. As other reviewers have pointed out, there are some REAL treasured nuggets here: a song like "Imagination," that I knew but hadn't heard for decades -- and there's a Bob Gaudio-written tune that SHOULDA been top ten, barely made the Hot 100...oh, there's just SO MUCH here. Enjoy enjoy enjoy.

Terrific CD, one of the best buys I've ever made. I love everything about it--the cover, the background info on the songs and artists--amazingly detailed and with a lot of info I had never heard before--the quality of the recordings (I had never heard "Hushabye" in stereo before; it's wonderful), everything. While there are songs on here that are readily available on other collections (The Crests' "16 Candles", Dion's "Runaround Sue", Jay & The Americans' "She Cried"), there are also some hard-to-find numbers (The Echoes' "Baby Blue", The Mystics' "Hushabye", The Regents' "Runaround") and then there are the real treasures--songs I hadn't heard for 30 years or more and couldn't find ANYWHERE (The Aquatones' "You", The Quotations' "Imagination", The Four Winds' [actually The Tokens using another name] "Remember Last Summer", The Four Evers' "Be My Girl") which by themselves were worth the purchase price. Altogether an outstanding package, and not just for the terrific music--the background info is priceless. I highly, highly recommend it.

This is chock full of hits from the 50's and 60's. Great for baby boomers like me. Easy listening in the car.

I was a teen during the time of these releases and have many good memories of this era that were linked to the release of each song. So, I'm a wee bit bias about the songs, and sounds of this music.

The sound quality is excellent. In fact, it is much better than some of my original 45's that I still have in my collection. Of course, with the better sound reproduction you will hear things that you didn't hear, or notice when these songs were new.

The instrumentation and singer's voices are sometimes amateur sounding and not as "smooth and cool" sounding as they were on the AM radio in my 57 Chevy, as I cruised along the boulevard, or even on the original 45's I bought later, but that just attests to the sound quality of this three CD set. You can really hear all that there is, and was there, when these songs were first released.

My wife loved reading the enclosed booklet that came with the set. In fact, while I was listening, or trying to listen, to CD's one and two, she kept interrupting with little known facts of the various lead singers, groups, etc. etc. This set was well worth the money.

Not bad, just not the great songs you hear on the radio or on a PBS special. Unless you are really into Doo Wop, I would buy a collection with more hits in it.