***Where Have The Girls Gone- When Young Women’s Voices Ruled the Airwaves Before The British Rock Invasion, Circa 1964- Early Girls, Volume Five
A YouTube film clip of The Chiffons performing their classic Tonight's The Night.
Early Girls, Volume Five, various singers, Ace Records, 2001
As I mentioned in a review of a two-volume set of, for lack of a better term, girl doo wop some of the songs which overlaps in this five-volume series, I have, of late, been running back over some rock material that formed my coming of age listening music (on that ubiquitous, and very personal, iPod, oops, battery-driven transistor radio that kept those snooping parents out in the dark, clueless, and that was just fine, agreed), and that of my generation, the generation of ’68. Naturally one had to pay homage to the blues influences from the likes of Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, and Big Joe Turner. And, of course, the rockabilly influences from Elvis, Carl Perkins, Wanda Jackson, and Jerry Lee Lewis on. Additionally, I have spent some time on the male side of the doo wop be-bop Saturday night led by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers on Why Do Fools Fall In Love? (good question, right). I noted there that I had not done much with the female side of the doo wop night, the great ‘girl’ groups that had their heyday in the late 1950s and early 1960s before the British invasion, among other things, changed our tastes in popular music. I would expand that observation here to include girls’ voices generally. As there, I make some amends for that omission here.
As I also noted in that earlier review one problem with the girl groups, and now with these generic girl vocals for a guy, me, a serious rock guy, me, was that the lyrics for many of the girl group songs, frankly, did not “speak to me.” After all how much empathy could a young ragamuffin of boy brought up on the wrong side of the tracks like this writer have for a girl who breaks a guy's heart after leading him on, yes, leading him on, just because her big bruiser of a boyfriend is coming back and she needs some excuse to brush the heartbroken lad off in the Angels' My Boyfriend’s Back. Or some lucky guy, some lucky Sunday guy, maybe, who breathlessly catches the eye of the singer in the Shirelles' I Met Him On Sunday from a guy who, dateless Saturday night, was hunched over some misbegotten book, some study book, on Sunday feeling all dejected. And how about this, some two, or maybe, three-timing gal who berated her ever-loving boyfriend because she needs a good talking to, or worst, a now socially incorrect, very incorrect and rightly so, "beating" in Joanie Sommers’ Johnny Get Angry.
And reviewing the material in this volume gave me the same flash-back feeling I felt listening to the girl doo wop sounds. I will give similar examples of that teen boy alienation for this volume, and this approach will drive the reviews of all five of these volumes in the series. It Hurts To Be Sixteen by Andrea Carroll, but what about a guy, a sixteen year old guy; Blue Summer by The Royalettes, make mine blue summerwinterfallspring; Sneaky Sue by Patty Lace & Petticoats, give me a call Sue; Richie by Gloria Dennis, an unworthy guy for sure; Poor Little Puppet by Cathy Carroll, self-explanatory; Lonely Sixteen by Janie Black, ditto it hurts to be sixteen; Jimmy Boy by Carol Shaw, it's always jimmy boy, how about marky boy?; Be My Boy by The Paris Sisters, okay, just call; Kookie Little Paradise by Jo Ann Campbell, I'll settle for the beach, blanket or not; and, Tonight's The Night by The Chiffons, this one hurts to the core, the not tonight core. I might add here, as I did with volume four, that as we have with volume five gone well over the one hundred songs mark in this series not only have we worked over, and worked over hard, the “speak to” problem but have now run up against the limits of songs worthy of mention, mention at the time or fifty years later, your choice.
So you get the idea, this stuff could not “speak to me.” Now you understand, right? Except, surprise, surprise foolish, behind the eight- ball, know-nothing youthful guy had it all wrong and should have been listening, and listening like crazy, to these lyrics because, brothers and sisters, they held the key to what was what about what was on girls’ minds back in the day, and maybe now a little too, and if I could have decoded this I would have had, well, the beginning of knowledge, girl knowledge. Damn. But that is one of the virtues, and maybe the only virtue of age. Ya, and also get this- you had better get your do-lang, do-lang, your shoop, shoop, and your best be-bop, be-bop into that good night voice out and sing along to the lyrics here. This, fellow baby-boomers, was our teen angst, teen alienation, teen love youth and now this stuff sounds great.
A YouTube film clip of The Chiffons performing their classic Tonight's The Night.
Early Girls, Volume Five, various singers, Ace Records, 2001
As I mentioned in a review of a two-volume set of, for lack of a better term, girl doo wop some of the songs which overlaps in this five-volume series, I have, of late, been running back over some rock material that formed my coming of age listening music (on that ubiquitous, and very personal, iPod, oops, battery-driven transistor radio that kept those snooping parents out in the dark, clueless, and that was just fine, agreed), and that of my generation, the generation of ’68. Naturally one had to pay homage to the blues influences from the likes of Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, and Big Joe Turner. And, of course, the rockabilly influences from Elvis, Carl Perkins, Wanda Jackson, and Jerry Lee Lewis on. Additionally, I have spent some time on the male side of the doo wop be-bop Saturday night led by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers on Why Do Fools Fall In Love? (good question, right). I noted there that I had not done much with the female side of the doo wop night, the great ‘girl’ groups that had their heyday in the late 1950s and early 1960s before the British invasion, among other things, changed our tastes in popular music. I would expand that observation here to include girls’ voices generally. As there, I make some amends for that omission here.
As I also noted in that earlier review one problem with the girl groups, and now with these generic girl vocals for a guy, me, a serious rock guy, me, was that the lyrics for many of the girl group songs, frankly, did not “speak to me.” After all how much empathy could a young ragamuffin of boy brought up on the wrong side of the tracks like this writer have for a girl who breaks a guy's heart after leading him on, yes, leading him on, just because her big bruiser of a boyfriend is coming back and she needs some excuse to brush the heartbroken lad off in the Angels' My Boyfriend’s Back. Or some lucky guy, some lucky Sunday guy, maybe, who breathlessly catches the eye of the singer in the Shirelles' I Met Him On Sunday from a guy who, dateless Saturday night, was hunched over some misbegotten book, some study book, on Sunday feeling all dejected. And how about this, some two, or maybe, three-timing gal who berated her ever-loving boyfriend because she needs a good talking to, or worst, a now socially incorrect, very incorrect and rightly so, "beating" in Joanie Sommers’ Johnny Get Angry.
And reviewing the material in this volume gave me the same flash-back feeling I felt listening to the girl doo wop sounds. I will give similar examples of that teen boy alienation for this volume, and this approach will drive the reviews of all five of these volumes in the series. It Hurts To Be Sixteen by Andrea Carroll, but what about a guy, a sixteen year old guy; Blue Summer by The Royalettes, make mine blue summerwinterfallspring; Sneaky Sue by Patty Lace & Petticoats, give me a call Sue; Richie by Gloria Dennis, an unworthy guy for sure; Poor Little Puppet by Cathy Carroll, self-explanatory; Lonely Sixteen by Janie Black, ditto it hurts to be sixteen; Jimmy Boy by Carol Shaw, it's always jimmy boy, how about marky boy?; Be My Boy by The Paris Sisters, okay, just call; Kookie Little Paradise by Jo Ann Campbell, I'll settle for the beach, blanket or not; and, Tonight's The Night by The Chiffons, this one hurts to the core, the not tonight core. I might add here, as I did with volume four, that as we have with volume five gone well over the one hundred songs mark in this series not only have we worked over, and worked over hard, the “speak to” problem but have now run up against the limits of songs worthy of mention, mention at the time or fifty years later, your choice.
So you get the idea, this stuff could not “speak to me.” Now you understand, right? Except, surprise, surprise foolish, behind the eight- ball, know-nothing youthful guy had it all wrong and should have been listening, and listening like crazy, to these lyrics because, brothers and sisters, they held the key to what was what about what was on girls’ minds back in the day, and maybe now a little too, and if I could have decoded this I would have had, well, the beginning of knowledge, girl knowledge. Damn. But that is one of the virtues, and maybe the only virtue of age. Ya, and also get this- you had better get your do-lang, do-lang, your shoop, shoop, and your best be-bop, be-bop into that good night voice out and sing along to the lyrics here. This, fellow baby-boomers, was our teen angst, teen alienation, teen love youth and now this stuff sounds great.
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