Customer Reviews

Teen Time: The Young Years of Rock & Roll, Vol. 3 - A Very Special Love

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

 

 

As a collector of 45 rpm records for close to 40 years, I certainly gave my share of business to Eric Records. You see for about 20 years or so Eric was one of America's leading reissue labels. The company dealt primarily in reissue 45's but would occasionally issue an LP. I probably own around 100 Eric reissues. Eric Records was always based in New York and sometime in the late 1990's the company could see the writing on the wall. 45's were no longer a marketable commodity so the company decided to close shop in New York with the intention of moving out to California to reinvent itself as a CD company. Well, several years went by and I heard little or nothing from the company. But now Eric is back and I would agree with the other reviewer that Eric is aiming to become the Ace Records of the United States. That would be a very positive development indeed!
"Teen Time Volume 3: A Very Special Love" is the first of their new CD's I have purchased. And let me tell you it is great. Featuring a very attractive cover and terrific liner notes this disc contains a whole bunch of charted tunes I had never even heard before. Add to that the fact that the sound quality is outstanding and you have a great value here. Every tune on this disc was a hit between the years 1957 and 1963. Among the hard-to-find tunes you will enjoy is Bob Beckham's original recording of "Just As Much As Ever" from 1959. You might recall that Bobby Vinton scored with that song about a decade later. I was also thrilled to find Johnny Nash's "A Very Special Love." I had never even heard the song before and I was not disappointed. Johnny Nash would remind you of Johnny Mathis on that one. Among the more familiar tunes you might enjoy are "My Heart Is An Open Book" from Carl Dobkins Jr. and Robin Ward's "Wonderful Summer" from 1963. It is not very often that I get excited about a new oldies disc. But having heard this one I am going check out any Eric CD I can find. Highly recommended and lots of fun!!!

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.

Teen Time - The Young Years of Rock & Roll, Volume 3: A Very Special Love is an excellent addition to this CD series of great pop hits from the 1950s and early 1960s. We get loads of wonderful tunes here and the sound quality couldn't be better--even when the tracks are in mono, they're still quite good.

The CD opens with the sweet and peppy "My Heart Is An Open Book" by Carl Dobkins, Jr. The female backup vocals work well and Carl's vocals sound great. He never misses a beat. Tab Hunter's "Ninety-Nine Ways" rocks and rolls easy and sassy both at the same time; and Tab never sounded better! The musical arrangement bolsters Tab's performance as well. I predict that you will enjoy "Ninety-Nine Ways" a whole lot! Tab sings of a man who wants to forget the woman who turned him down even though he loved her.

"Just As Much As Ever" by Bob Beckham swings, rocks and rolls just right with a great beat; this almost feels like a 1940s ballad but don't be fooled--it still fits in here very well. It's also the first time "Just As Much As Ever" appears on any CD--cool!

The Demensions perform a passionate and smooth rendition of the classic "Over The Rainbow;" and the percussion enhances the musical arrangement. The Demensions harmonize very well, too. Listen also for The Blue Diamonds doing their hit called "Ramona;" they sing this without a superfluous note and the melody is unmistakably late 1950s! I especially like "Ramona."

The CD ends with a great hit for Robin Ward; she sings "Wonderful Summer" to perfection and the female backup vocalists make this number all the better.

The liner notes give a lot of info about these great numbers; and the artwork is in very good taste. Excellent!

I highly recommend this CD for any fan of pop music of the 1950s and early 1960s. The sound is great and we get lots of tracks from many different artists. If you like this CD don't hesitate to get all three albums in this series!

This CD is no longer available here but is still available as a rare Collector's Item itself from ericrecords.com. But hurry! Very limited supply remaining.

If you were a serious young record collector between 1956 and 1963 you came to understand there were singles you would probably never ever see or even hear again, much less find on CD, but Ace and Eric have some very discriminating and knowlegable engineers on the staff to come up with the gems in their series. Bravo again on Volume 3: A Very Special Love. I got this collection just to hear "Ramona" because I had the original London single in my personal collection and thought I was the only boy in the universe who cared about the sound. But it doesn't stop there! There will never be anything like having the original singles in your hand, but the Eric series should satisfy many a listener and many a collector with the care in selection and sound given these great discs. Abolutely a must! Hats off to all involved!

Sweet and simple. If you collect oldies and want the best possible remasters, you can't go wrong with anything on the Eric label. This compilation's no exception.

Since over three years have now passed since this third release in Eric Records Teen Time series, I'm assuming that it was also the last. As with the first two, Greg Adams does a nice job with the liner notes, giving us seven pages to go along with the discography of the contents. And, as always, the sound quality is excellent.

Had producer Bill Buster chosen to simply continue his fantastic Hard To Find 45s On CD series with the contents of these three volumes, once again there were several here that would have fit in well with that series. For example, until this came out I had been unable to find either the Bob Beckham (Just As Much As Ever) and Bob Braun (Till Death Do Us Part) cuts in a quality CD.

Others in that category would be tracks 10, 14, 15 and 18. Stereo tracks are 1, 6, 7, 15, 16 and 20.

Also, after commenting on seeing the same cover photo on all three volumes in my reviews of the first two volumes, I just noticed that they did change the color of the girl's skirt on each.