When much of the
Cameo Parkway
label catalog finally got reissued on CD, this 25-track compilation gathered most of the biggest hits the company had issued between the mid-'50s and mid-'60s. The label's biggest stars --
Chubby Checker
,
Bobby Rydell
Dee Dee Sharp
, and
the Orlons
-- are all represented here by several tracks apiece, with one or two by less prolific chart artists like
the Dovells
the Tymes
the Rays
(their one-shot
doo wop
classic
"Silhouettes"
),
Charlie Gracie
(the
rockabilly
-
pop
hit
"Butterfly"
), and
? & the Mysterians
(their 1966
garage rock
chart-topper
"96 Tears"
). It's true there's no strong musical theme that unites this material, which encompasses
pop-soul
, early
teen idol
smashes, the most popular twist records ever made,
, and even (with
John Zacherle
's
"Dinner with Drac, Pt. 1"
)
novelty
. It's also true that there might be room for some debate over the track selection, which misses some notable
hits like
Checker
"The Fly,"
Gracie
"Fabulous,"
and
Rydell
"Forget Him"
"Kissing Time."
And the package certainly could have done with at least a short liner note, instead of offering nothing but credits and chart positions. Still, there are many good
pop/rock
hits here, including quite a few very famous ones, like
"The Twist,"
'
"Bristol Stomp,"
Sharp
"Mashed Potato Time,"
"So Much in Love,"
"South Street."
You can get some more music by the artists on the single-artist anthologies and various-artists box set of
material that
ABKCO
released around the same time. But for those who don't want to go that far, and/or are primarily concerned with finally getting a lot of big hits that eluded CD reissue for decades, this is a good accumulation/sampler of the label's most popular efforts. ~ Richie Unterberger