Oldies Rock Music

I grew up during this era. Frankie was a natural. I still cannot figure out why with all that God given talent and his personalaity he got himself hooked on drugs. What a waste of talent. I wish he were here today. Who knows how far he could have gone.

I grew up during this era. Frankie was a natural. I still cannot figure out why with all that God given talent and his personalaity he got himself hooked on drugs. What a waste of talent. I wish he were here today. Who knows how far he could have gone.

These recordings display the vocal range of Frankie Lymon from his first hit recording "Why do Fools fall in Love" to songs when his voice changed as in "Change Partners". Frankie Lymon was unbelievably talented and possessed the ability to know how to sing songs with the correct tempo and change. You must get this CD Set.

Not much could be more sheer 60's British Go-Go than this. Stick a Mike Myer's Austin Powers photo in the middle of this cover, in place of Mark Wirtz, and you've got it. This isn't up to the standards of Mark's better works using popular vocalists. In style, think of James Bond soundtrack orchestras covering hits of the day and other light fare. In the 60's, it would have been categorized under "Easy Listening" but today it is legitimately cool "Lounge"! For more fully deveoped efforts in which Mark guided the ship, see "Philwit and Pegasus" or the "Teenage Opera" soundtrack where solid UK session players and good vocalists had more prominent roles.

I have not yet recieved my order. It's been delayed a few times. I'm disappointed it's taking so long. It should be available if you're asking for a review.

Mark Wirtz is a magician; a song wizard. His genius will touch you, change you and renew your faith in music's ability to heal, unify and strengthen us.

Stellar example of a forgotten genre, so square it's hip! Obscure retro sounds...if not legendary, at least a whole lot of fun! Great music to mix with modern hipsters such as Death By Chocolate, Yoshinori Sunahara, or Fantastic Plastic Machine. F.A.B. muzak for experimental DJ's to annoy family & friends.

Maybe I'm too intense to appreciate this music, but I can't figure out why there's enough interest in Mark Wirtz to warrant all these reissues. The most flattering comment I've been able to find by anyone else is "cheesy music". I find it lifeless and stupefying--every cut sounds the same! Am I missing the point, or is the point merely that I'm supposed to get some sort of arch glee out of listening to this stuff?

I'm not sure anyone else would give this set 5 Stars (or give it a review at all for that matter) and to be honest, I haven't heard the selections from two of the three albums that are compiled on this CD...

BUT I do know one thing....

The title of the first album is Organ SHINDIG, not Organ Shining. No wonder I couldn't find this album initially through Amazon's search machine! Jeez!

FAST FORWARD to 04/24/09: Amazon has corrected the error since my initial review a couple of years ago (way to go, Amazon!)

Overall a good selection of original sixties songs, every one a good one. Sometimes a collection has one or two in it that you don't care for, but this one is a very good one. My 5th graders even love listening to it, they especially love It's a Wonderful World by Louis Armstsrong.

I bought this for my mom. She loves it and listen to it all the time.

20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of the 60's is yet another CD that just doesn't fulfill the promise of the title. You think you're going to get a lot of great music from the 1960s, but the number of tracks from the early `60s is woefully short. You do get good sound quality; and we get some good songs. However, it's just not a retrospective that is true to the title of the album.

The Angels start the CD off with a bang as they do their "My Boyfriend's Back." I believe that the other reviewer is right when they mention that this is the only track recorded before 1965! The Angels, however, do sing this really well and the tune has a catchy, upbeat flavor to it that I really like.

Fontella Bass does great with her classic "Rescue Me;" Fontella sings this with all her heart and soul and it shows when you listen to this ballad. "Rescue Me" rocks really well with some great lyrics that a lot of people can relate to when they're feeling alone and unloved. Fontella sings "Rescue Me" to perfection!

The Mamas & The Papas perform their "California Dreamin'," a number that inspired so many young people to move westward to California in search of inner peace and a better quality of life. Awesome tune! Procol Harum also are here with their classic entitled "Whiter Shade Of Pale." I really like "Whiter Shade Of Pale."

Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" does come off the Adult Contemporary charts; but this is just so darn good that I'll happily let it stay here anyway. Joe Cocker also does a great cover of "With A Little Help From My Friends," too.

Steppenwolf has the final cut with their "Born To be Wild;" I really like this rockin' tune and it makes a strong ending for this album. The electric guitars work very well.

The liner notes have basic information about the songs; but that won't rescue this album. The problem here is that there just isn't enough from the early 1960s to call this a "best of the 60's" CD. What a shame. This is purely for the casual fan who happens to like the tunes on this CD.

I've given up arguing against MCA's continued swindling of the American record-buying public with these Millennium series collections, so let's just take a look at the music, okay? At just over 40 minutes, this 12-song cd is a little more generous than most. Are these songs the "Best of the 60's" as the title implies? That's a bit open to interpretation. After all, the title isn't "No. 1 Hits of the 60's" (although four of these songs are). It's not even called "Top Ten Hits of the 60's" (because two of these songs never reached the Top Ten, and it wasn't until 1972 that "Nights in White Satin" reached No. 2 in the U.S.--five years after Days of Future Past was released).

The other two non-Top Ten songs are "With a Little Help From My Friends," which was a U.K. No. 1 but peaked at only No. 68 in the U.S. Its inclusion can, however, be justified because of Joe Cocker's spell-binding performance of the song at Woodstock. The other is "What a Wonderful World." While Louis Armstrong knocked the Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love" from the top spot in 1964 with "Hello Dolly," Armstrong--who was born in 1901--was hardly embraced by the flower child generation in 1967 when "What a Wonderful World" hit No. 12 on the Adult Contempory (old fogeys) chart. The song no doubt makes the list after its chart success (No. 32) when it was rereleased as a single from the Good Morning Vietnam soundtrack.

The rest of the songs were huge hits and for the most part are representative of the era. The biggest flaw is how do you represent an entire era with a mere twelve songs? On the plus side, there's only one pre-1965 song: the Angels' "My Boyfriend's Back" from 1963. The rest of the songs are from the Sixties rock era, although Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild" and Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody To Love" are the only songs here that really rock. But how do you argue with such choices as "My Girl," "California Dreamin'," or arguably the best pop single ever recorded--Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"?

The U.K.'s ACE label put out a similar release last year called Chartbusters U.S.A. for about the same price, but ACE packed thirty songs onto a single disc. Why can't MCA be as generous? [Okay, I know I said that I was going to stick to looking at just the music, but I couldn't help myself.]

So who would buy this album? My guess is that MCA is relying heavily on impulse buyers. These albums usually get a high profile display in the discount stores and if there are several songs on here that you absolutely have to have the price isn't too bad, but unless MCA slashes their list price in half you're better off sticking with your favorite Classic Rock radio station. It's cheaper and you get a better song variety.

I bought this LP when it first came out in the early '60s, still have it and wore it out. The range of songs runs from rock, pop, to country.
The rock version of George Gershwin's "Summertime" still stands out to this very day, Joe Osborn's bass line has been copied many times. "Stop Sneakin' 'Round' has a very unique sound and syncopated rhythm and sounds new, as if it was recorded yesterday. Many of Ricks songs were way ahead of his time. I have a son-in-law that loves county music and I have played some of Ricks country songs, he was amazed when I told him that they were recorded 40 years ago. He said "This sounds like what is Nashville is turning out NOW"
As all wise the legendary guitar playing of James Burton is on all the tracks, his guitar solos are worth the price of admission. John

Although Imperial would continue to release many repackagings of Rick Nelson material for several years, this 1962 album was his final set of new recordings for the label before moving over to Decca Records. "Album Seven" is not among the top tier of Nelson albums, but is still a solid collection of songs, with his usual contributors (Dave Burgess, the Burnette brothers, Jerry Fuller, Baker Knight) all represented here. The kickoff track, a rock version of the Gershwin standard "Summertime", is one of Rick's most overlooked recordings. Play this one for anyone who ever accused Nelson's music of being "bubblegum"! (They might even recognize what Johnny Rivers and Blues Magoos stole from the arrangement!) The album closer, "There's Not a Minute", is one of the saddest songs I've ever heard ("when I see two lovers run to meet each other/then I think of all my dreams that won't come true/when I realize I'll never love another/so many things, dear, remind me of you.."). "Mad, Mad World" makes me want to get away from it all, and just sit by a river in the mountains somewhere. There's a strong country feel on songs like "Congratulations" and "Can't Stop Loving You", and plenty of rock and roll on "Stop Sneakin' Around" and "Excuse Me Baby". The addition of Rick's 1962 hit singles "Teenage Idol", "Young World", and "It's Up to You" is a welcome bonus, as are the 4 songs from his super rare extended play 45 "Ricky Sings Spirituals". Ricky may not have loved gospel music as obsessively as his pal Elvis Presley, but he does just fine with the four songs included here. There's passion in his voice as he sings "I Bowed My Head in Shame", and Baker Knight's "Glory Train". Too bad Ricky never recorded a full album of songs in this style.

What a dissapointment this FTD release was. The original album sounds horrible. Sounds like they took a copy of a copy of a copy of the master and then applied Noise Reduction to it to make it sound as dull and lifeless as humanly possible. This is the worst version of the original album ever released. Amazing! Shame on you Ernst! Listen to every FTD release before releasing it from now, will ya?

The rest of the tracks, the alternates and outtakes sound OK. So, this is not definitive. You still need to find a decent copy of the origianl album. Save your money.

By the time he made this album, Elvis was deeply into his phase of studio weariness and his penchant for gravitating toward maudlin, "tear in your beer" country-rock was never stronger. Nevertheless, "Today" is one of his best albums of the 70's if you know these things going in. The production is quite good with very deep lows and clear highs. Highlights of the album include "And I Love You So" which Elvis sang to his then girlfriend in the studio, "Pieces of My Life", "Bringin' It Back" and "Green Green Grass of Home" which Elvis recorded after hearing Tom Jones' version. The story is that Elvis heard the Jones recording on the radio while traveling in the south and called the radio station and had them play the song numerous times. Finally Elvis went to a studio and laid down his version.

I have the Follow That Dream version of the album which comes in a 45 record size foldout package which has two cds. The original album is on disc one along with nine outtakes and disc two contains the original session mixes (without overdubs) and material recorded at RCA's Sunset Boulevard studios in California. This edition also contains a booklet with numerous photos and notes from the time of the recording. However, I have also owned the RCA remastered cd from 1991 and I recommend that disc to anyone interested in this album. The sound quality is comparable to the FTD edition and very good on it's own merits.

First the bad news : the 10 songs on the original album are inferior sounding in every way to the 26 extra tracks. Older recordings share similar problems. The final mastering (`professionalizing') of these recordings - including mixdowns due to a limited number of tracks and technical adjustments to accommodate both radio and `records' - so compressed the sound spectrum, and the soundstage, that modern resuscitations of the unprocessed tracks often sound amazingly improved. The only answer is to remix from the original `raw' session tapes before remastering. Of course, then you have something new and different; not the original, but a version that is truly `new and improved' (unless you love the original and think that `they' screwed it up by changing it). To please everyone, companies could put the remastered version on one disc and the remixed-remastered version on a second disc, but with CD sales drying up ... fat chance.

Perhaps this is why we still don't have Remastered Beatles releases - Apple wants to improve the sound, but it doesn't wish to destroy the magic of the original mixes. How do you rerecord Tomorrow Never Knows when the tape loops were mixed live; or I Am The Walrus when the final mix included a live BBC Radio feed? Much of rock & roll's magic is `in the mix'. And let's face it, 60 year-old ears don't hear as well as 20 year-old ears, equipment changes, people are not in the same `frame of mind', some artists have unfortunately passed on, etc. You can't recreate the art of the moment or just have computers do it. George Martin brought in his son Giles to remix Beatles recordings for Cirque du Soleil (check out the DVD-Audio version of The Beatles Love to see how far this reinvention can go). The Who have remixed everything for some of their remasters - and thus today's versions are not the same as before. Look at My Generation thru the eyes of Amazon reviewer Terestai : "... it was discovered that many elements were recorded directly to the finished mono mix. Therefore, isolated tracks of these "add-ons" didn't exist to be put into this stereo remix. Such elements include the guitar overdubs on "My Generation" and "A Legal Matter", the vocal harmony in the second verse of "Much Too Much" and, most noticeably, the doubletracked vocal in "La-La-La Lies" ..." The latest Doors remixes `fix' numerous issues, and let's not even get into multi-channel Super Audio mixes. By the way, listen to the early Rolling Stones DSD Remasters to hear what can be done without remixing. All that said - yes, "you can't always get what you want, but ..." : Ernst could have pumped up the volume on those first 10 tracks and punched up the sound some.

We are here, however, to celebrate the rest of this great package. The sound is full, loud, clean - glorious, especially the 6363 Sunset `practice' material which closes the second disc. I now own 7 of these FTD (Follow That Dream) releases and this is the most revelatory of all (check out the shopelvis site for all 63 titles)! You have to experience the textures to believe them. Elvis has never sounded so, well, alive. There are 3, 4, even 5 `takes' of some of these songs. We are not talking false starts and breakdowns here (often fun enough in their own right), but rather different moods and sometimes different arrangements. A few of these alternate takes (`And I Love You So', `Green, Green Grass Of Home', `Fairytale', etc) are so much better than the original releases it makes you wonder about Felton Jarvis, the original producer. [To be fair, Felton tried to deal with some of these problems when he released Guitar Man - a nice 1981 LP (never issued on CD) which stripped away the overdubs on some earlier Elvis releases and revealed the great recordings underneath.]

From the opening licks of a spontaneous, great sounding Tiger Man outbreak, Elvis and the band rock with an energy that was often sucked out of the original album. The piano sound, the guitars, the vocals, the very spacey airiness is like being right there in the studio with E. Strangely enough, according to Ernst Jorgensen (The Complete Recording Sessions ), it was Elvis himself who hated the original session mixes which open the second disc. Elvis commanded Felton to remix the entire set and overdub strings. I hate to disagree with the master, but the emotion and feel of these unadorned mixes and early takes is often far superior to the final line-up of the original LP. This expanded 2 hour-plus FTD edition chronicles Elvis's last studio work for RCA. His final 16 studio tracks would be recorded at his beloved Graceland home.

The little booklet, which comes with all of the FTD 7 inch mini-LP packages, is superb. It includes tracking dates, session info, musicians, pictures, etc. The box has the great shiny covers that often grace European imports. These FTD releases are `soft boxes', no hard-shell plastic case for protection - shippers must be careful ! If you love late-period Elvis music, this is the only version of Elvis Today to own. Enjoy .,.

"Dr."Don Rose,morning DeeJay on WQXI,Atlanta Georgia was,doubtlessly,a "Doctor"in the same way that "Dr."Demento is a "Doctor",i.e.A Doctor of radio-ology...With his really lame jokes,and his double-meaning quips,the good Doctor kept Atlanta rolling along in the morning way back in 1967...A lot of the fun in listening to Dr.Don Rose,both live(if you are old enough to have been able to)or as recorded on this album,is to see if you can catch the good doctor flubbing a line,either accidentally or,more likely,on purpose..on this album Rose does his level best not to flub until the very end,but when he does so on this album it is a real doozy..Announcing the final song before the new sbreak(and the end of the album)Rose fast-talks himself into a corner announcing the strawberry alarm clock's hit tune"Incense and peppermints"as"Incest and peppermints"...That sort of thing would have gotten him censored back in'67,but,in a more modified format,this was just the sort of thing Dr.Don did daily....Along with ten bonifide hit tunes from that banner year,and the line-flubbing bad -joking Doctor,there are vintage commercials for the 1967 Rambler,John Smith Chevrolet(I wonder if he is still wheeling & dealing all of these decades later?)a Morgan cleaners commercials and ,of course,the"secret Student"contest..All in all,this is fun listening,recalling a time when A.M.radio was fun to listen to....

Radio as I grew up with. Dr. Don Rose is a truly great DJ, and we get a feel of Atlanta in 1967. Stick this CD in the car player and drive down the road and time goes backwards. Oldie lovers will play this one over and over. The commercials make it just as realistic. Where are you today Dr. Rose?

Buyers Beware: The song by Tommy James & the Shondells - "I Think We're Alone Now", although listed on CD back insert is NOT listed on top face of CD and is missing when playing the CD! [Perhaps it was removed because of licensing...?]

Put it in the CD player of my car, and I zoomed back to my teen years in 1967. What radio really was like in the '60s, with nothing comparing with it today. Music from an age of innocence, playing in an age of terror. If you want to bring back memories of the past, buy this CD and others of the series.