VA - 25 Hits Of The 60s (2004)

It has been claimed that fashion in popular music undergoes a significant shift at roughly ten year intervals, based on the examples of the taste for Glenn Miller and the Big Band sound in the mid 1930s, for Frank Sinatra and other crooners (mid 40s), Elvis Presley and Rock'n'Roll (mid 50s) up to the Beatles and 4-piece guitar-based pop in the mid 60s. This album focuses on 25 exam-ples of hit songs throughout the 60s decade, including songs from the pre-Beatles early 60s period when American dominance still held sway.
Johnny Tillotson's 1960 No.1 Poetry In Motion was a country-tinged U.S. teen ballad which owed much to the previous decade, as did the following year's British success by Danny Williams with the romantic easy listening sound of Moon River, made famous by namesake Andy. Also in 1961 Americans Maurice Williams a one-hit wonder with the much-covered Stay and the Tokens' The Lion Sleeps Tonight again mined the time of wistful innocence which dominat-ed the U.S. pop charts in the very late 50s, immediately after the initial explo-sion of Elvis and the early Rock'n'Roll acts had been toned down to appease conservative America. On the other side of the pond, Glasgow's Karl Denver was basically a country singer who emulated the Tokens' success with his ver-sion of Wimoweh and trumpeter Kenny Ball represented the brief crossover movement known as Trad with the instrumental Midnight To Moscow.
1963, of course, was the year of the Beatles' first No.1 hits and their impact immediately brought in a slew of imitators, represented here by fellow Liverpudlians Gerry & The Pacemakers' smash hit I Like It and the playful romance of Freddie & The Dreamers' You Were Made For Me. The Texan Trini Lopez had an off-the-wall hit with the Latin rhythm of If I Had A Ilammer in
the same year and 1964 saw the tortured style of Sheffield's Dave Berry rise to the top with his melancholy The Cryin' Game, countered in mood by the straightforward cheer of Ireland's Con, Dec and John, the Bachelors.
Producer Phil Spector cast a strong shadow over the decade, too, and his influ-ence can clearly be heard in the Shangri-Las teen epic Remember (Walkin' In The Sand), while English beat continued with the Mindbenders and the Troggs, both showing off their more melodic side here. In 1968/69 diversity flourished with the Latin melody of Light My Fire by the Puerto Rican Jose Feliciano, the 50s throwback sound of Tommy Roe's Dizzy and the U.K. soul of the Foundations.
All the time, throughout the decade, mainstream Black American music was constantly shifting its formats, beginning in 1960 with the smooth baritone voice of Brook Benton an the superior ballad Kiddio. The Drifters' 1964 Saturday Night At The Movies was an evocative snapshot of social observation, as their polished vocal group performance did full justice to the carefully craft-ed songs of such gifted writers as Goffin & King and, here, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Lead singer Ben E. King also scored with the majestic ballad Stand By Me and by the mid 60s the muscular sound of Sam & Dave and the Gospel-drenched pleading of Percy Sledge showed up the power of great Southern traditions. All this led from the glory days of the Stax & Atlantic labels into the infectious pop of Betty Everett, the irresistible melody of the Miracles and the awesome intelligence and emotion of Marvin Gaye's I Heard It Through The Grapevine, recorded in 1969, an appropriate end to the decade's mood of optimism and hedonism.