2961. V.A.: Alan Freed's Memory Lane
2962. V.A.: Alan Freed's Top 15
2963. V.A.: The Roots of Rock 'n' Roll
2964. V.A.: The Vocal Group Album
2965. V.A.: In the Still of the Night
2966. V.A.: You Found the Vocal Group Sound
2967. V.A.: The Golden Age of Rhythm & Blues
2968. V.A.: The Best of Chess/Checker/Cadet: Doo-Wop
2969. V.A.: Collectors Showcase: Groups Three, Vol. V
2970. V.A.: "Rock, Rock, Rock"
2971. V.A.: Parrot Doowop
2972. V.A.: Unreleased Gems of the 1950's
2973. V.A.: Cruisin' With the Cadillacs 'n Cats Like That
Mixworthy: "In the Still of the Nite," Five Satins, and "Goodnight My Love," Jesse
Belvin, #2961; "Kansas City," Wilbert Harrison; "Speedo," Cadillacs; and "Get a
Job," Silhouettes, #2962; "Count Every Star," Ravens; #2963; "It All Comes Back to
Me Now," Marshall Brothers, 2964; "Close Your Eyes," Five Keys, and "Stay," Maurice
Williams & the Zodiacs, #2965; "The Closer You Are," Channels, #2966; "This Broken
Heart," Sonics, and "So Far Away," Pastels, #2967; "Over the Mountain, Across the
Sea," Johnny & Joe, #2968; "Girl of My Dreams," Earls, #2971.
I'll carry on with compilations and save box sets for later. I'm too lazy to do so
right now, but I still plan to relocate compilations and 12-inches from the front of
the collection to the back, to match the way everything's numbered here, so I won't
gum that up by sticking box sets in the middle...I've never filed LPs in a specific
order within the compilation section. There are a bunch of subsections roughly deter-
mined by genre, and as long as I reshelve something in the same general area, that's
as precise as I get. So as I work through the next couple of hundred records, I'm giv-
ing them a fixed order for the first time...To begin, the first half of the '50s rock
and roll section, albums that are wholly or mostly made up of doo-wop. (Except for
Alan Freed's Top 15, which I like to keep paired with the other doo-wop-heavy Freed
collection.) My immersion into doo-wop dates to the second half of the '80s, espe-
cially my time at CIUT; some of the songs listed above were the core of my all-night
show's second incarnation, an all-ballad format I adopted partly as a joke, and part-
ly as a preemptive overreaction to a bit of CRTC trouble I got into during the show's
first incarnation. I think it was a combination of Mean Streets and Marcus's occa-
sional writings on the genre that first got me interested in doo-wop, with American
Graffiti and American How Wax also playing a role. I learned very quickly that this
was a body of work that was locked into the time frame it came out of (the very end
of the '40s to the early '60s, approximately; I'm not sure exactly when the name doo-
wop came into general usage, but I know it didn't happen for at least a few years),
and that trying to drag the genre into the present-day--New Edition's Under the Blue
Moon was one version of how that might be done; those PBS revue-type specials that
periodically air are another--is invariably a bad idea. That faraway, almost secret-
ive world that my favourite doo-wop conjures up was very appealing to me, with a
beauty and a stillness in songs like the Sonics' "This Broken Heart" and Dee (Clark)
& the Kool Gents' "When I Call on You" comparable to what I hear in "Norwegian Wood,"
the Velvet Underground's "Jesus," and the best parts of Kind of Blue. The closest
I've ever seen anyone come to capturing the dreamier end of the doo-wop spectrum on
film is Kenneth Anger in Rabbit's Moon. The intensity of my feelings for the genre
began to subside over time (a process hastened along by a few too many starry-eyed
mix-tapes for another CIUT D.J.), and when I play any doo-wop on my current show,
it's usually of a wilder variety: the Chips' "Rubber Biscuit," the Cellos' "Rang
Tang Ding Dong (I Am the Japanese Sandman)," and Sheriff & the Ravels' "Shombalor"
are my current favourites. But that world contained in the ballads will always have
a spot somewhere in my imagination.
________________________________________________________________________________
2974. V.A.: American Graffiti
2975. V.A.: The Best of Chess Rock 'n' Roll
2976. V.A.: Golden Oldies Revisited
2977. V.A.: Collector's Records of the 50's and 60's
2978. V.A.: Heartbreak Fifties
2979. V.A.: 20 Golden Pieces of Vintage Rock 'n' Roll
2980. V.A.: The Australian Rock 'n' Roll Stars
2981. V.A.: Teenage Meeting
2982. V.A.: Rocking Back Rock Revival
Mixworthy: "The Stroll," Diamonds; "Little Darlin'," Diamonds; "Peppermint Twist,"
Joey Dee & the Starlighters; "Barbara Anne," Regents; "Do You Wanna Dance," Bobby
Freeman; "Come Go With Me," Del-Vikings; "Since I Don't Have You," Skyliners; and
"Green Onions," Booker T. & the M.G.'s, #2974; "Suzie Q," Dale Hawkins, and "Sally
Go Round the Roses," Jaynetts, #2975; "I Will Follow Him," Little Peggy March; "The
Lion Sleeps Tonight," Tokens; and "Love Is Strange," Mickey & Sylvia, #2976; "This
I Swear," Skyliners, #2977; "Endless Sleep," Jody Reynolds, #2978; "Tell Me Why,"
Rob Roys, #2982.
I guess this is the mostly-'50s, mostly-non-doo-wop section; it was larger until I
just now started relocating stuff into the mostly-'60s section. A bunch of colossal
songs I don't have anywhere else, though, thanks primarily to the American Graffiti
soundtrack, which still has to be the greatest multi-artist soundtrack ever assembled
(i.e., if forced to choose, I'd probably nominate the British Help! as the greatest
period); a commercially available Mean Streets soundtrack would have been more eso-
teric, but I don't think it would have been quite as good. The Wolfman Jack excerpts
from the film are excellent, although they can be intrusive if you ever want to lift
something for a mix-tape. (He's not around for the two songs I used most often over
the years, "Come Go With Me" and "Since I Don't Have You," so I got lots of mileage
out of the album.) The "I Love Everything" message board recently had a poll on the
greatest films of the '70s; I voted, placing American Graffiti 13th on a list of 20,
and there's some back-and-forth between me and my new bete noir, one Dr. Morbius,
way at the bottom of the page. (You say white, Morbius says black; you say up, Morbi-
us says down; you counter with a joke about how absurd down is, Morbius's feelings
are hurt and he throws a hissy fit. I'm hoping he changes his handle to "Miss Conge-
niality" one of these days.) Much to my amazement, American Graffiti did not finish
in the Top 100. It didn't finish in the Top 150, either, and at #198 just barely made
it into the Top 200--one spot ahead of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, I'm happy to say,
but below Grease, Live and Let Die, and Capricorn One. I know, it's easy to start
selectively playing the over/under game to make a point; for the most part it's a
well-chosen, wide-ranging list, but that one still has me scratching my head...As
Radio On's first-ever cover girl, Little Peggy March was our house Marilyn Monroe.
She was matched up with a probing lyric from C&C Music Factory, an historic meeting
of underappreciated pop geniuses across the sands of time.
________________________________________________________________________________
2983. V.A.: Phil Spector's Greatest Hits
2984. V.A.: Phil Spector's Greatest Hits
2985. V.A.: Carole King Plus
2986. V.A.: Dream Babies
2987. V.A.: Golden Summer
2988. V.A.: Summer Means Fun
2989. V.A.: California U.S.A.
2990. V.A.: All the Hits by All the Stars
2991. V.A.: Golden Era Series, Volume 3
2992. V.A.: Now That's What I Call Rock & Roll
2993. V.A.: Rock of Ages
2994. V.A.: Hairspray
Mixworthy: "I Love How You Love Me," Paris Sisters, and "Just Once in My Life,"
Righteous Brothers, #2983; "The Loco-Motion," Little Eva, and "Chains," Cookies,
#2985; "The One You Can't Have," Honeys, #2986; "Surfin' Bird," Trashmen, and "The
Lonely Surfer," Jack Nitzsche, #2987; "The Twist, Chubby Checker; "Bristol Stomp,"
Dovells; "Pony Time," Chubby Checker; and "I'll Be True," Orlons, #2990; "Death of
an Angel," Donald Woods, and "No More," Uptones, #2991; "Time Won't Let Me," Out-
siders; "Nobody But Me," Human Beinz; "Wild Thing," Troggs; "Wooly Bully," Sam the
Sham & the Pharaohs; and "Louie Louie," Kingsmen, #2992; "Come a Little Bit Closer,"
Jay & the Americans, #2993; "The Madison Time," Ray Bryant Combo; "Nothing Takes
the Place of You," Toussaint McCall; and "I'm Blue (The Gong-Gong Song)," Ikettes,
#2994.
Onto the '60s. #2984 is an ever-so-slightly abridged British version of #2983: 20
songs instead of 24, with not a single variation among them. So why did I buy it?
Because it was there and it was probably a dollar or two, although for most people
that still leaves one unanswered question: so why did I buy it? Most of the Spector
stuff was covered in the alphabetical section. I said earlier that "Ebb Tide" wasn't
included on the domestic Spector collection, but I was wrong, it's there--anyway, not
one of my favourites...Conversely, #2987 and #2988 are two-record surf collections
with no overlap whatsoever--the first on United Artists, the second CBS--but they
still miss some key non-Beach Boys songs ("Pipeline," the Marketts' "Out of Limits")
that I had to buy on 45; California U.S.A., also a double, mostly consists of surf,
but there are also people like Walter Egan, Jackie DeShannon, and Flo & Eddie on
there--Eddie on a surfboard, okay, but Flo? I don't know the album well at all.
Jack Nitzsche's "The Lonely Surfer" is one of the most evocative pop instrumentals
ever, whatever the genre...There was a Cameo-Parkway box set released very recently;
#2990, a 40-year-old Pye pressing, gets most of the label's most famous hits onto a
single 12-song collection, limiting Chubby Checker to "The Twist" and a couple more.
The box is probably worth whatever it costs for Senator Bobby's "Wild Thing" alone,
one of my favourite download discoveries of the past year, but I got a lot of mix-tape
and radio-show use out of the more modest single volume. No recollection of where I
bought it...One year I got the idea that I'd have my class present the line dance
they do in Hairspray to "The Madison Time" at a school assembly. I really did want
to do it, but it was also a ruse to get this great-looking teacher from across the
hall to teach me the steps. It's a complicated dance, and I could never even get
the very rudimentary movements of the Macarena correct. Not surprisingly, the pro-
ject was abandoned when a couple of lessons made it clear I was no way ever going
to learn this dance.
________________________________________________________________________________
2995. V.A.: John Richbourg Presents 20 Golden Oldies
2996. V.A.: Cruisin' 1964
2997. V.A.: The History of Syracuse Music, Volumes X & XI
2998. V.A.: Liverpool 1963-1968
2999. V.A.: 20 One Hit Wonders, Volume Two
3000. V.A.: Twenty One Hit Wonders, Volume II
3001. V.A.: Hullabaloo Au Go-Go!
3002. V.A.: Where the Action Is!
3003. V.A.: The In Crowd
3004. V.A.: The Four Seasons/Johnny Rivers/Neil Sedaka/The J Brothers
3005. V.A.: A Taste of Birchmount Pop
3006. V.A.: Zenith Salutes...The Teen Sound
3007. V.A.: The Young Blood Story, Vol. 1
Mixworthy: "My True Story," Jive Five, #2995; "The Girl From Ipanema," Stan Getz/
Astrud Gilberto, and "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)," Betty Everett,
#2996; "Torquay," Vanguards, #2997; "Now We're Through," Poets, #2999; "Shakin'
All Over," Guess Who, #3005.
'60s odds and ends. I've included two picks from Cruisin' 1964 just to get them on
record, but, as anyone familiar with the Cruisin' series knows, overlapping D.J.
chatter and radio spots render them useless for mix-tapes, and that's really all I
ever used compilations for. There's only one I can think of that I listened to on a
semi-regular basis like I would any other single-artist album, Alan Freed's Memory
Lane (as much for Freed's introductions as for the music itself), but otherwise I'd
play them once or twice, mentally make note of whatever songs I really liked, and
only take them off the shelf when taping or for the radio show. So I never bought
any of the other Cruisin' albums, even though I wouldn't mind owning the whole ser-
ies just for the cover art...#2997 has Sgt. Pepper-parody cover art--one of two LPs
in my own collection to try that, and one of probably about 50 overall (the most
famous being the Mothers' We're Only in It for the Money)--and a Lou Reed song from
1964 called "You're Driving Me Insane." All I remember about the album is that "Tor-
quay"'s a pretty wild instrumental...Something I never realized until right now:
#2999 and #3000 are exactly the same album. That's embarrassing. Even though they
share the same title (with some variation in how it's rendered), their cover art is
so completely different, and both were filed so quickly, that I never noticed the
duplication. I took out one of them a few weeks ago looking for something to play on
the radio, and that's when I discovered the Poets song (an Andrew Loog Oldham produc-
tion). But even there I didn't clue into the fact I owned the same record twice. I'm
not sure if I'm now obligated to buy the first volume in duplicate...#3001-3004 are
all on the Design label, which specialized in some of the cheesiest covers to predate
K-Tel. If I can come up with a scan of Hullabaloo Au Go-Go!, I'll put it up...There
are undoubtedly great songs I'm missing as I go through these. I was 97% confident
that I was remembering my favourite songs as I worked through the alphabetical sec-
tion, but I look at something like The Young Blood Story, Vol. 1, which has the Easy-
beats and the Showstoppers and the Sorrows and Mac & Katie Kissoon, and I'm thinking
there's got to be something on there that would sound really great to me right now.
I won't stop to check, though, because then I'll start obsessively checking every
compilation, and then six months will go by and I'll still be working on this, then
four more months, then another four months, and then I'll just go insane and have to
be hauled off for some rest somewhere before I have a chance to finish.