Mainly Rock & Roll

Mainly Rock & Roll

by The ChordettesThe Chordettes

Overview

This 32-song compilation stretches from 1954 to 1962 -- from their "Mr. Sandman" chart-topper through their flirtation with rock material in the late '50s and their final discs in the early 1960s. The liner notes view the Chordettes as a link between the Andrews Sisters and the girl groups of the rock era, and while there's some truth in that, the Chordettes undoubtedly owe much more to the Andrew Sisters. The rock & roll flavor in some of their hits sounds more like a nod to necessary incorporation of commercial trends than genuine inspiration. The pop material is executed with a cleanliness that is both impressive in its virtuosity and innocuous, even a little sterile, in a family-entertainment sort of way. Still, this has all that almost anyone will need to hear by the group, including all of their big hits and many misses. For a while in the late 1950s they dipped into the rock & roll repertoire often, with covers of "Lonely Boy" (the lyric changed to "He's just a lonely boy" for gender compatibility), LaVern Baker's "I Cried a Tear," "Charlie Brown," "Pink Shoelaces," Annette Funicello's "Tall Paul," and "To Know Him Is to Love Him," with unimpressive results. "A Girl's Work Is Never Done" and "No Wheels" even have King Curtis on sax, resulting in the raunchiest (relatively speaking) Chordettes tracks. "Pink Shoelaces" actually isn't bad.

Product Details

Release Date: 12/20/1993
Label: Ace Records Uk
UPC: 0029667293426
catalogNumber: 934
Rank: 129579

Tracks

  1. True Love Goes on and On
  2. Mr. Sandman
  3. Lonely Lips
  4. Hummingbird
  5. The Wedding
  6. Eddie, My Love
  7. Born to Be with You
  8. Lay Down Your Arms
  9. Teenage Goodnight
  10. Echo of Love
  11. Just Between You and Me
  12. Soft Sands
  13. Photographs
  14. Lollipop
  15. Baby Come-A-Back-A
  16. Zorro
  17. Love Is a Two-Way Street
  18. No Other Arms, No Other Lips
  19. A Girl's Work Is Never Done
  20. No Wheels
  21. Lonely Boy
  22. Charlie Brown
  23. I Cried a Tear
  24. Pink Shoelaces
  25. Tall Paul
  26. To Know Him Is to Love Him
  27. My Heart Stood Still
  28. For Me and My Gal
  29. A Broken Vow
  30. Never on Sunday
  31. Faraway Star
  32. In the Deep Blue Sea

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