Customer Reviews

Teen Time - The Young Years Of Rock & Roll, Volume 1: Love Me Forever

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Most of the conglomerate music companies have pretty much thrown in the towel when it comes to mining the vaults of rock and roll's early golden era. Thankfully, Eric Records, the small but potent label has graced the market with their outstanding single-artist and compilation CD's often offering the music of artists not found elsewhere. Anyone can throw together CD's of the top-10 songs over and over again but Eric has chosen to rescue many of the forgotten and overlooked tunes that many listeners still remember and want to hear again. Their "Hard To Find" series of CD's has been a collector's paradise.

Now, in a new series, Eric continues to offer more rarely, if ever, found golden-era teenager tunes wrapped around a number of the more popular songs of the day. And in keeping with their high standards, these CD's offer the best in sound quality and are accompanied by insightful liner notes. This first volume, "Love Me Forever", in their new "Teen Time" series, offers eight top-10 songs, five top-20 charters and a sprinkling of chart-challanged sides. Though leaning toward the casual listener's musical memory, this piece does offer a few first-time-to-CD tunes represented by the Four Esquires' "Love Me Forever" and Cathy Carr's "First Anniversary" making it equally intriguing to the completist collector. While the appeal of the included tracks is an individual consideration, no domestic label puts together better compilation CD's than Eric and this new entry is another outstanding example of how it should be done.

There's no other way to put it than to say that this CD is flawless! How do they do it? Even the tracks that you might already have on other collections pale in comparison to the sound reproduced here. Some of the highlights here are the stereo single version of Fortuneteller by Bobby Curtola (debut), the stereo single version of First Anniversary by Cathy Carr (another CD debut), as well as CD debuts by Valerie Carr, Ed Townsend, and Cathy Carroll, and all the other tracks that will make your previous CD's obsolete. This is a must-have, for all serious collectors of the music of the first golden era of pop/rock. Bravo!

I am a enthousiastic collector, and have almost all the Time Life rock n roll stuff, as well as ACE cds of this era.
I could comment like this like I have on ACE editions, or the Eric Records HArd to Find 45s series. Excellent, and must have!
A few points why:
20 tracks per cd (Time life is also excellent, but you get 15 per cd!)
excellent booklets with background info
not the same old songs over again, but many rare and still excellent tracks!
last but not least amazing sound quality.
So although you might have some songs there on other collections like ACE, it is for above mentioned points alone worth it to always have an Eric copy as well.

When Bill Buster launched this mini-series in 2004 my first reaction was, why didn't he just include these cuts in another volume in his ongoing Hard To Find 45s On CD series? He also could have come up with a different cover photo for Volumes 2 and 3. But hey, in the end it's the music and the quality of its presentation that counts, not what he uses as a title or sub-title, as the selections included in each seem to try and follow the themes of "Love Me Forever", "I Got Rhythm" and "A Very Special Love."

As Juliet said to Romeo "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" and here Eric Records offers up 60 more classic cuts in a manner which places them right up there with the best distributors of Golden Oldies anywhere, Ace of London and Bear Family included.

Like the Hard To Find series, this one offers up a mix of fairly common selections with some genuine finds, and in that category I would include Love Me Forever by The Four Esquires, a # 25 late 1957 Billboard Pop Top 100 on the small Paris label with the backing of the Sid Bass orchestra (not to be confused with the later R&B group, The Esquires). Two more would the selections by the two Carrs, Valerie and Cathy (no relation to each other OR to Vikki Carr). When The Boys Talk About The Girls was the only hit for Valerie, and it reached # 19 Hot 100 in summer 1958 on Roulette, with the backing of Hugo Peretti & His Orchestra (of Hugo & Luigi fame). Cathy Carr's First Anniversary, ironically enough, also had the backing of the Peretti orchestra when it made it to # 42 Hot 100 in earlY 1950, also on Roulette. Her real name was Angela Helen Catherine Cordovano.

A discography of the contents is on the back of both the jewel case and the last page of the insert, which also has six pages of informative liner notes written by Greg Adams. All tracks are in stereo except 1 to 3, 6, 7, 13 and 15.

Eric records I was blown away after receiving my first three eric Hard to find compact disc. I am a baby boomer and I have been collecting music of all kinds. I mean records, 8 tracks, cassettes, and now compact disc. I have well over a thousand different types of original rock n roll. Now Eric has shown me that there is a company out there that finds the really true memories of the golden days of rock n roll. I have my wish list stocked with stuff I have been trying to find for decades. CONGRATULATIONS ERIC RECORDS !

Dennis in Ky.

Once again Eric brings us a jam packed disc of cool oldies, put it on your player and go cruisin'!

Teen Time - The Young Years Of Rock & Roll, Volume 1: Love Me Forever is an excellent compilation of great teen hits from the 1950s. The sound quality is awesome; and the selection of twenty songs gives us a generous package that is also the start of a CD series of major hits of the 1950s.

There are many highlights of this CD; but I'll try to keep my review to the very greatest ones. I really like Jimmie Rodgers performing his classic hit "Secretly." The tempo is just right and his beautiful voice makes this a great number. The musical arrangement lacks nothing, either. The Playmates also turn in a solid number as they harmonize to perfection on "What Is Love;" this song features The Playmates celebrating the female form and the joys of spending time with their sweethearts. In addition, there's also "Stay With Me (A Little While Longer)" by Ed Townsend. Townsend makes this really good with his excellent diction and his intonation serves up every subtle nuance the way it was meant to sound. The backup vocalists on "Stay With Me (A Little While Longer)" help to bolster the number, too.

One number that is a personal favorite would have to be "Heartaches" by The Marcels; they sing this doo-wop/early rock and roll type song without a superfluous note. Listen also for Shelley Fabares's excellent rendition of "Johnny Angel." Shelley's voice is rich, warm and vibrant. You'll be thrilled with "Johnny Angel."

"The Gypsy Cried" by Lou Christie is one of the better numbers that have some excellent backup vocalists; and "Easier Said Than Done" by The Essex is a golden nugget shining brightly! Last but certainly not least, "See You In September" by The Happenings tops off the track set with a strong love ballad that still sounds fresh and new today.

Just as Amazon notes, you get the liner notes in the form of a booklet with background information on each song; and the artwork impresses me.

Overall, if you like those teen pop tunes from the late 1950s and early 1960s, this CD and the rest in this series would be a must-have purchase for you. I highly recommend this album for fans of this type of music.