Customer Reviews

Sue Thompson - Greatest Hits

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

 

 

Sue Thompson had a nice high voice and some good hits. Her voice reminds me a little of Brenda Lee. Sound quality on this CD is excellent. Eleven songs are in flawless true stereo and sound as though they could have been recorded yesterday. Only track 11 is mono. Track listing is as follows:

(1) Sad Movies (Make Me Cry) (2) Norman (3) James (Hold The Ladder Steady) (4) Paper Tiger (5) Have A Good Time (6) Two Of A Kind (7) I Can't Stop Loving You (8) Big Mable Murphy (9) Candy And Roses (10) Never Naughty Rosie (11) She Reminds Me Of Me (12) Tennessee Waltz

Sue Thompson is a wonderful singer and a truly unique one. Her deliciously raspy twang (imagine Kim Carnes crossed with Skeeter Davis with a touch of Doris Day and more than a little Cyndi Lauper), unbeatable in songs with a comic touch like NORMAN and PAPER TIGER and giving a wonderful tongue-in-cheek melodrama spin to SAD MOVIES (which probably would have been sung dreadfully sober by another pop star.) Sue beautifully captures teen angst and the comic undercurrents beneath it. Her voice sounded so much like a teen, few people knew she was well past 30 at the time; next to Sue, genuine teen Brenda Lee comes across like a jaded matron.

Like Brenda, Sue was not actually a country singer in the 1960's but simply recorded her hits in Nashville. That and her southern background couldn't help but put a country touch on much of her work. When she finally genuinely went "country" in the 1970's, her music had scarcely changed a note. Regrettably, there were no big country hits although I have always loved the barely charting CANDY AND ROSES and Sue came close (at age 49!) to having a big hit in 1975 with the wonderful BIG MABEL MURPHY (originally recorded by country songwriting legend Dallas Frazier and then Diana Ross!!) which made the top country 50 and easy listening top 40 in Billboard. These are the original recordings at a bargain price, if you own one Sue Thompson CD, this should be it.

Success was slow to come for Sue, who was in her late thirties when she had all the hits that people remember her for. Those songs were generally lightweight, upbeat songs but they are very enjoyable to listen to.

Sad movies make me cry, Norman, James hold the ladder steady and Paper tiger, the first four tracks here, were her four big pop hits from the early sixties. They were somewhat less successful in Britain, partly because Britain's own Carol Deene (a fine singer destined to remain forever obscure) covered most of Sue's hits and they generally competed against each other.

After the pop hits dried up, she switched to country music, which was her natural calling anyway. She was modestly successful in that genre for several years, most notably with Big Mable Murphy.

All those songs are included in this short but cheap collection, which also includes Sue's lovely covers of I can't stop loving you and Tennessee waltz. I would prefer a full-length CD or (better still) a double-CD, but I guess that's wishful thinking. For what it is, and at the price, this cannot be faulted.

YES I DID LIKE SUE THOMPSON. SHE WAS REAL CUTE AND SWEET. THE COUNTRY SINGER CROSSED OVER TO THE POP CHARTS LIKE CONWAY TWITTY, JACK SCOTT AND JO ANN CAMPBELL.HER VERSION OF "SAD MOVIES MAKE ME CRY" WAS BIGGER THAN THAT ONE BY THE LENNON SISTERS, EVEN THOUGH IT WAS GOOD ALSO! THIS C.D. CONTAINS "NORMAN" AND "JAMES, HOLD THE LADDER STEADY" AND OTHER HITS POPULAR IN THE 6O'S. DON'T MISS OUT ON THIS POPULAR 60'S DIVA!

You would like to get some of Sue Thompson's greatest hits and, at this point, are perhaps trying to decide between this relatively cheap offering and one of the others which cost more than twice as much. Well, as far as I'm concerned there is no contest. Most Curb products simply cannot compete with the likes of Varese-Sarabande, Rhino, Eric, Ace and Collectables.

I know I have been hard on Collectables with many of their products, but their Golden Classics edition covering Sue Thompson is easily the best available, giving you ALL of her seven Billboard Hot 100 hit singles as well as several B-sides, and all with a much superior sound quality and informative liner notes.

This one from Curb follows their usual pattern of blaring GREATEST HITS - and then failing to deliver. They come close, providing nine, but when it comes to tracks 7, 11, and 12 I would like to have someone at Curb explain exactly how these were interpreted to be from among her greatest hits.

None charted, either in the Billboard Hot 100, Country or Adult Contemporary (AC) charts. In their place they might have instead placed Willie Can, which is the missing Hot 100 hit, going to # 78 in early 1963. And any tendency to pass this off by claiming it was a minor hit is offset by the inclusion of Never Naughty Rosie which barely made the Country Top 100 in 1976 when it reached # 95.

Even Candy And Roses and Big Mabel Murphy were not among her Country "greatest" - topping out at # 72 in late 1972 and # 50 (and # 40 AC) in the fall of 1975 respectively. Better choices there would have been her three best Country hits: I Think They Call It Love - the duet with Don Gibson that reached # 37 in 1972; Good Old Fashioned Country Love - # 31 in 1974; and Oh, How Love Changes - # 36 in 1975.

Liner notes are also minimal - one page by Don Ovens. As I say, fork over a few bucks more and get a truly definitive compilation.

Sue Thompson was a popular singer in the 60's in Thailand. It's already almost 50 years now and I am still listening to those cathcy songs of hers. Perhaps her appeal to the Thai people could be due to her clear pronunciation....you can hear every word she sings. If you want to learn English, listen to her songs. My only wish in music is that I can buy "Meet Sue Thompson" in CD format. That album was the best.

What a fantastic voice by one of country-pop's great voices of the past. I remembered listening to Norman when I was a little boy. After buying this CD, I discovered many other gems. This is excellent music by a very talented singer. A must buy!

This CD has some great old songs on it & brought back many memories of our era of music. ie "Sad Movies" & "Norman".

Even though she was nominally a "country" artist, the squeeky-voiced Sue Thompson was really much more in a teen pop and girl group singer, whose work in the early 1960s skirted the edges of rock'n'roll and pop, very much modeled after Brenda Lee and her highly successful crossover formula. For fans of the style, Thompson's early singles offer a swell "new" set of teenpop tunes outside the usual Brill Building standards by Carole King and her pals. John D. Loudermilk wrote most of these tunes, which were recorded for the independent Hickory label, and they are actually pretty fun to listen to. It's not very country, but it sure is fun!

the sue thompson is a wonderful blast from the past! sound quality was excellent.i highly recommend if your into old rock-a-billy!