Street Corner Serenade: Greatest Doo Wop

Various Artists - R&B/Soul - Doo Wop | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 20, 1999)
• Original Release Date: July 20, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rhino
• ASIN: B00000JFV7
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,392 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Why Do Fools Fall in Love?

2. Whispering Bells

3. Speedoo

4. Earth Angel

5. Little Star

6. I Wonder Why

7. Book of Love

8. Sincerely

9. Come Go with Me

10. Only You (And You Alone)

11. Hushabye

12. There Goes My Baby

13. I Only Have Eyes for You

14. A Teenager in Love

15. Sixteen Candles

16. Stay

17. Oh, What a Night

18. There's a Moon Out Tonight

19. Blue Moon

20. Get a Job

See all 22 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Sampler of Fifties Doo Wop, February 9, 2001

By 

Susan Nunes (Medford, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Street Corner Serenade: Greatest Doo Wop (Audio CD)

If you are like me, a fan of the great harmonies of the 1950s doo wop groups, but don't have the money for the big boxed sets, I heartily recommend this CD. It is an excellent introduction to that great sound and some of the tunes popular on oldies radio are included in this set, such as "Teenager in Love," "Little Star," "Hushabye," and that timeless classic, "In the Still of the Nite."

Since there were so many great songs from that era, Rhino could not include every great doo wop song ever made. One major omission is "At the Hop," by Danny and the Juniors. Still, these recordings are an obvious testament to the superiority of the music forty to fifty years ago, when people could actually sing and when listeners could actually make out a melody. We may never have that era back, but thank goodness we have these recordings for posterity.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Kinder, Gentler Urban Sound, December 24, 2003

By 

Andy Agree "jackrabbit79" (Omaha, NE) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Street Corner Serenade: Greatest Doo Wop (Audio CD)

My first exposure to pop music was the Beatles and Motown, and anytime the radio played any doo-wop, I changed the station, sneering "Ewww, oldies!" Times sure have changed, and this is very, very special music to me now. Doo-wop was truly born on America's urban street corners in the 1950s, invented and perfected by teenagers without any serious help from the adult world. The music wears its teenage heart on its sleeve, with a purity and innocence that only a child or teen could conceive. The instrumentation is bare - scarcely noticeable, while vocals provide the bass, the percussion, the counterpoint and the harmony as well as the melodious leads. Propelling the music are the most creative baby-talk syllables ever invented, such as sha-la-la, dip-dip-dip, mum-mum-mum, bom-bada-bom, ding-a-dong-ding, wop-wop-wop, rata-tata-too and many, many more.

As with many American musical inventions, blacks took the lead, but were quickly followed by white and interracial groups from adjacent urban neighborhoods, and all made major, innovative contributions to the "genre". Valuable detail on many of these groups is provided in the CD cover notes. They exemplify vocal teamwork as well as any church choir, all the way from falsetto to bass, and that is what makes them so much fun to listen and sing along to. Unlike other musical styles prevalent in the fifties and early sixties, doo-wop evolved virtually in isolation, having little in common with blues, jump, jazz, swing or rock `n roll, and its influence on the subsequent evolution of rock or pop was limited. Still, you can hear the influence of barbershop quartets in doo-wop, and echoes of doo-wop in the harmonies of the early Beatles or Temptations. Doo-wop is like one of those evolutionary anomalies, such as the Koala - cute, cuddly, funny-looking, well-loved, but nothing like a dog, or a cat, or a horse. And yet, doo-wop was a critical part of the soundtrack of the decade 1954-1963 (roughly from "Earth Angel" to "So in Love"), and was actually close to being dominant from 1958-1961.

Doo-wop exudes joy and yearning, both in the songs themselves, and in their performance, and you can be sure that these studio creations, although masterful enough to draw tears from your eyes, fall far short of the magic of the actual street corner serenade. And so, this CD is only the tip of the iceberg - but what a treasure. And to make an obvious comparison to what is today marketed as the "urban sound", this was from a far kinder, gentler, more inclusive urban culture.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Street Corner Serenade, May 31, 2001

By 

Jimmy C. Stokes (Madison, GA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Street Corner Serenade: Greatest Doo Wop (Audio CD)

This is a fantastic CD for anyone that loves harmony and 50's and 60's music. The quaility is superb and the selection of tunes is very appealing. It a most entertaining collection of music.