Customer Reviews

Very Best of the Olympics

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Novelty records had established their niche in early rock and roll by the late 50's and looking to be the next Coasters, the Olympics invaded the top-10 with their "Western Movies" in mid-1958. Follow-up efforts yielded little staying power and the Olympics are often relegated to one-hit status, yet in truth they managed to put 14 records into the pop top-100 charts well into the 60's.

There has yet to be a comprehensive collection of the Olympics' recordings and this effort from Varese Vintage comes ever so close but does leave off one charted song from 1965, their version of "Good Lovin'", the tune that the Young Rascals would watch rise to the top of the charts. This one omission notwithstanding, this is the most complete gathering of Olympics' tunes to be found representing their output from four labels spread over eight years. Thrown in for good measure is a "bonus track", the 1974 recording of "I'm A Dead Man Still Walking Around" and "Peanut Butter", a recycling of "Baby Hully Gully" originally recorded by a group dubbed as the Marathons brought in by the Olympics' label to provide an Olympics-sounding release when touring prevented the Olympics from recording.

As these tracks are from diverse and somewhat obscure labels, the sound quality varies with at least a couple having been taken from vinyl, however three of the tracks do appear in stereo (3,4,17). Finishing out the package is an eight-page liner notes booklet with a history of the group contributed by Billy Vera.

Though just shy of totally complete hit-wise, this is the best available collection of the Olympics' recordings and well fills a long-standing gap in the CD-reissues of early rock era r'n'b groups.

The Olympics recorded the original version of "Good Lovin'" done later by the Young Rascals. Yet for some uncertain reason, Good Lovin' is left off the this CD.

How about "Well"? "Well" is the flip-side of "Western Movies" and was covered by John Lennon during the "Imagine" sessions and once again in 1972 for "Some Time in New York City". The "Some Time" version is live and, unfortunately, includes Yoko Ono on "screams".