The Bachelors - Presenting: The Bachelors (1964) {2008, Reissue}

The Bachelors were an Irish pop band of the 1960s consisting of brothers Conleth (b.March 3, 1941) and Declan Clusky (b. December 12, 1942) and John Stokes (b. August 13, 1940). They began as an instrumental act playing harmonicas and called the Harmonichords or Harmony Chords in 1958, but turned to singing after a tour of England in 1959. They signed to Decca Records in the U.K. and changed their name in 1962, then scored their first hit, "Charmaine" (number six, 1963). Their biggest hit was "Diane" which went to number one in England and number ten in America in 1964; they continued to chart with new records through 1967 and maintained the original group on the cabaret circuit until a messy split between Stokes and the Cluskys in 1984.

In an odd twist on the way these things usually work, this U.K. release is a CD reissue of the Bachelors' first American album, Presenting: The Bachelors, with the addition of seven tracks that appeared on non-LP singles in 1963 and 1964 in Britain. The format might be something of an excuse to round up and repackage the Bachelors' earliest recordings, but if that's what you want, this reissue does a good job of it. The Presenting: The Bachelors LP itself only differed a little from their first U.K. album, the big difference -- and one that helped the quality of the record -- being the addition of "Diane," a U.K. chart-topper that was by far their biggest hit in the U.S. (where it reached the Top Ten), and its follow-up single "I Believe." As heard on the original LP, the Bachelors were an anomaly in the first wave of the British Invasion (even disregarding the fact that they were actually Irish), as they had little to do with rock or even pop/rock. Instead, they were a close-harmony vocal group favoring adult-oriented pop and standards, with a heavy dash of corny country-folk thrown into the mix.