Fascinating mishmash of rarities almost lost to the public
uthungus | San Francisco, CA | 08/03/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"What a rare experience it is to see so many nearly lost and obscure songs carefully put together in one collection as in this one! I've yet to see a "follow up" as that would be very interesting too. Nearly as funny as some of these lost tune lyrics are the amusing liner notes Malcolm (Baumgart) and Mick (Patrick) made on many of them. Another mention was made about Bernadette Castro, and on this they comment about her TV commercial history with "Sofabeds" for her family! Several of the songs are actually reel-to-reel demos (Anita Humes for one) that even left in her saying "...Oh! We messed up..!" at the end! Lots of others to note, so some of my personal favorites are: Spandells' "Boy Next Door" - claimed to "mirror" the Chiffons "Foolish Little Girl"; Elena 007; Renee St. Clair's "My Hero" (classical piece cleverly put to "Shoo-Wop"!); a rare Diane Renay delight "The Company You Keep"; The Jet Set (reminding me of the 3 "rhythm" girls in opener of Elvis Presley movie "Change of Habit"; both versions of Marie Applebee's overly dramatic "Boy Who Took My Heart" (also funny liner notes on this); and finally Anabelle Fox's "Lonely Girl" - who is compared to a second Dionne Warwick for good reason (more funny liner notes about that, too!) . Not all jewels among the collection, but a great study in music history here of things that didn't quite make it big (like in The Tammys "(You Missed) the Big Time"), but I love them anyhow!"