Search - Various Artists :: Girl Group Sounds: One Kiss Can Lead to

Girl group heaven

Michael Miller | Carmel, IN USA | 10/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've been in seventh heaven listening to Rhino's latest boxed set, One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds, Lost and Found. I'm a long-time fan of the early-60s Girl Group/Brill Building/Wall of Sound genre (and of Rhino Records, of course), and this boxed set is perhaps the finest representation to-date of the Girl Group part of that equation.



First, the details. This is a 4-CD set, each CD with 30 songs each, for a total of 120 girl group classics. It comes with the kind of in-depth liner notes, in a separate booklet, that one expects from the folks at Rhino. And it's all wrapped up in what looks to be a 60s-era hatbox, very cute.



The recordings are all first-rate, fully remastered in glorious mono (in most cases). Many of the songs here are available on other collections (such as K-Tel's long out-of-print The Brill Building Sound boxed set), but the sound here is much superior to what I've heard elsewhere. Take, for example, the forgotten gem "My One and Only, Jimmy Boy" by The Girlfriends. This song first got rediscovered on The Brill Building Sound, then later was included on one of Ace Records' Early Girls compilation CDs. In both those instances, the sound was muddy, without a lot of headroom; it sounded as if it had been recorded in a trashcan. Not so on Girl Group Sounds. Here the sound is bright and clear, almost as if it had been recorded last year instead of forty years ago. (It first hit the charts in February of 1964, where it got swept away by the Beatles invasion.) You can hear every footstomping beat, every crack from Hal Blaine's snare drum, and all the glory of Steve Douglas' rockin' sax solo. The sound is so vibrant, so joyous, you just want to get up and dance along.



As I said, most of the songs on the Rhino set have been available in other collections, although you had to look hard for them. Rhino's mid-1980s The Best of the Girl Groups compilations offered some of these tunes, as did K-Tel's late, lamented 1993 The Brill Building Sound box. More recently, U.K. reissue label Ace Records had dug up several of these cuts for their Early Girls and Where the Boys Are compilations, although both the sound and the liner notes are superior in this new Rhino set.



My favorite tunes? There's a bunch. "He's Got the Power," by The Exciters. "You Don't Know," a rare solo singing turn by songwriter Ellie Greenwich. "Please Don't Wake Me," by The Cinderellas. "I Never Dreamed," by The Cookies. "Break-A-Way" by Irma Thomas. The Bacharach-like "Girl Don't Come," by Sandie Shaw. "The One You Can't Have," by The Honeys, written and produced by Brian Wilson in his best better-than-Spector mode. The aforementioned, "My One and Only, Jimmy Boy," by The Cinderellas, a rollicking Wall of Sound-alike by future Bread-winner David Gates. "Dream Baby" by a very young Cher, where producer Sonny Bono shows that he learned something when he used to work for Phil Spector. "I'm Blue (The Gong-Gong Song)" by the Ikettes, recently revived in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1. "Peanut Duck," an irresistibly odd dance number by an anonymous singer billed as Marsha Gee. A somewhat obscure Dusty Springfield number titled "I Can't Wait Till I See My Baby's Face." A rare live version of Patty & The Emblems' "Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl." And too many more to mention.



The Girl Group sound was inspired by the popular female pop singers of the 1950s (Patti Page, Rosemary Clooney, et al), the burgeoning R&B genre (Ruth Brown, Etta James, et al), and various female doo-wop groups. The fire was lit by early rock 'n' roll, and the fuel provided by the era's best producers, songwriters, and studio musicians. Its birthplace was New York, but it quickly migrated to Los Angeles, Detroit, London, and beyond. At its best, the Girl Group sound mixed bits of Brill Building pop, Phil Spector Wall of Sound, sassy Motown soul, and the sound of swingin' London -- although it doesn't fall squarely into any of these camps. After all, Brill Building songwriters also wrote for male teen heartthrobs and manufactured groups like the Archies and the Monkees; the Wall of Sound powered hits by The Righteous Brothers and Ike & Tina Turner; Motown was at least as much Temps and Tops as it was Supremes and Marvelettes; and London pop eventually devolved into schmaltzy Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdinck. So the Girl Group sound was more than the sum of its parts -- it was its own distinct sound, whether fronted by a real group or a solo singer with backups.



To many critics, the post-Elvis, pre-Beatles era was a musical wasteland, but they just weren't listening hard enough. The best of the Girl Groups (and solo singers working with backup groups) transcended the factory-like approach to the music, working with the best songwriters, producers, and studio musicians to create classic tracks that bear their unique imprint. I'm talking about groups like The Shangra-La's, The Chiffons, and The Shirelles, and solo singers like Ronnie Spector (of The Ronettes), Darlene Love (of The Blossoms), Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, Leslie Gore, and, of course, Diana Ross (and The Supremes). These are great songs, great performances, and great records. I can listen to them all day long -- and often do.

"

Mammoth Compiilation Hits One Out Of The Park !

Meathook Williams | Warwick, Massachusetts | 10/07/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Even those who've known me the longest will think I've finally imploded and left the planet for good...until they hear this one for themselves. Why? Glad you asked. It's because I can say without reservation that this is the Mother of All Boxed Sets. It's that simple. Having been a lifelong girl group fanatic and having bought several of these tracks as singles when they were released, I am FLOORED by the combination of material, taste, research and packaging that I now hold in my hands. It's truly a case of quality meets quantity. And even those cuts I already possess sound better in this collection. Within this clever hatbox (Bonwit Teller circa 1962?) resides a peerless collection that even the completist simply must have.

Perhaps it's most impressive characteristic is how the sub strains of this fascinating and addictive genre fall seamlessly into place on four packed to capacity CDs. The Great Disc Jockey in the Sky has tendered his resignation. Not all of the tunes here were intended as dance numbers, but you'll have a hard time keeping still for long and those with multi-disc players will be vindicated for making such a purchase.

This isn't a complete surprise, however. Nobody does box sets like Rhino. Only Deutschland's Bear Family comes close, and the edge must be given to Rhino as a result of their packaging prowess. Aside from the aforementioned hatbox, the graphics and superior commentary in the almost one inch thick '"diary" add to the overall value of this landmark package with its blue snakeskin cover (disclaimer: no reptiles were harmed or humiliated for this project).

Since none of the 120 selections here even approaches filler status, I won't babble on about my personal favorites- there are way too many. I'll just finish up by reiterating: there is no downside here. And the price is more than fair. A landmark release with very highest marks all around."

Intelligent & Loving Exploration of an Oft-Ignored Genre

Natalie Miller | New Orleans, LA | 12/28/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One Kiss Can Lead to Another is the first & only box set dedicated solely to the "girl group" genre. This is NOT a "girl groups" box set, as some people seem to believe, but a collection of "girl group sounds", as the title states it. Hence, the box is most certainly not intended for an audience of vinyl-hoarding purists, but it IS a mass-market-friendly exploration of the grand productions & catchy pop songs being delivered by female solo acts and groups from the period. The sheer number of "sounds" that were collected for this set -- 120 songs on four CDs -- is almost overwhelming by itself, but what is truly amazing about it is the number of artists. There is relatively little "overlap", and the number of strange and hard-to-find one-offs, b-sides, and flat-out obscura by artists both "known" (Peggy Lee, Jackie DeShannon) and "unknown" (Peanut, The Whyte Boots) is where the real reward lay.



DO NOT get this box set if you are looking to find a crowd-pleasing selection of hits. While there are some undeniably great gems within, the box set works best as a sort of "Intro to Girl Group 101" text. There is a variety of sounds, artists, and experiments covered but no particular facet of the girl group genre is represented with any real depth. This is just as well -- there are plenty of compilations out there that detail this long-maligned genre with much more specificity (The "Girls in the Garage" compilations come to mind), and the volume of sounds herein more than makes up for it.



One Kiss Can Lead to Another actually bears a lot of similarity to that OTHER genre-defining classic Rhino set, the whopping Nuggets & Nuggets II. Much like that set, you will find little in the way of keg-party smashes in favor of much more interesting & bizarre cuts by artists of varying popularity (and, as a caveat, prolonged listening to the box set in one sitting might prove to be an exercise in the endurance of repetition). There are no real "career"-defining moments here for any of the artists nor any unified sound; This is simply a good collection of the good, the strange, and the flat-out weird.



There will be plenty of naysayers that are eager to point out the fact that the set lacks any true "hits", that the lack of actual Spector recordings and inclusion of many Spector "rip-offs" is abundant, that the packaging is rather "gimmicky" and that several of the artists included (Wanda Jackson?) aren't true "girl groups". That's okay -- those who dig strict adherence to convention over having fun probably shouldn't be listening to girl groups in the first place. For the rest of us, the box is nothing short of amazing, and downright touching in the way it's compilers have managed to cull so many great/weird/interesting recordings for a genre as condescendingly named & long-dismissed as this one. What sets this collection apart from the number of budget-bin compilations is the fact that so many "standards" have been left off in favor of less-popular hits, in hopes that the listenener will be forced to think about the nature of the sound rather than be omforted by the familiarity of the sound itself. For anyone interested in looking beyond the oldies-station format and into the ups, downs, side-steps and downright mis-steps of girl group music as a whole, this is the collection for you, and it's every bit worth it. It's a literal hat-box of fun."