Mitchell Torok - Red Light, Green Light: The Singles Collection 1949-1962 (2021)

He may not be as well remembered these days as some of his 1950s peers are, but Mitchell Torok did something that a great many more famous names of his era never did by scoring two very big UK Top 20 hits in the mid-50s and touring the country for over a month to support his unexpected local success.

One of those hits was 'Red Light, Green Light', the other was 'When Mexico Gave Up The Rhumba'. It's after the former that Jasmine's new collection of Mitch's most significant singles from the end of the 1940s to the beginning of the 1960s is titled.

A songwriter of considerable strength, Mitch wrote all his own hits and helped get the career of the great Jim Reeves under way by writing his first significant chart success 'Mexican Joe'. The composer's own version is included here, along with his own biggest US hit 'Caribbean' - another strong seller in the UK that took nearly 5 years to hit the Billboard Hot 100 (originally issued in 1954, charted in 1959!) Oddly, neither of his UK Top 30 hits made any US charts at all.