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/ The Crystals

October 5, 2020 By Joe Marchese 8 Comments

johnny mathis merry christmas

October is upon us, and while 2020 hasn't given us much to rejoice about, the holiday season is almost here.  Before the month is out, radio stations will begin switching to seasonal formats, and television will begin showing yuletide movies.  With a never-ending barrage of bad news, "we need a little Christmas right this very minute" has hardly seemed more apt.  Sony's Legacy Recordings is getting a head start on Christmas this year with the release on vinyl of 10 favorite albums from the

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Categories: News Formats: Vinyl Genre: Country, Holiday, Jazz, Pop, Popular Standards/Vocal, R&B/Soul Tags: Alabama, Andy Williams, Darlene Love, Dean Martin, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, Gene Autry, Johnny Mathis, Kenny G, Kenny Rogers, Perry Como, Phil Spector, The Crystals, The Ronettes

June 1, 2015 By Joe Marchese 1 Comment

Sweet Things from Greenwich and Barry

With Sweet Things, Ace Records has picked a most apt title for its third volume of music from the Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry songbook (Ace CDCHD 1434).  Though Greenwich and Barry were united as husband and wife for just the short period of 1962-1965, and only worked together for a short time after that, a year hasn't gone by since when their enduring songs haven't been recorded and re-recorded.  The collection's 24 titles span 1963-1978 and blend hits and rarities from the duo with tracks

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Categories: Reviews Formats: CD Genre: Pop Tags: Darlene Love, Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry, Phil Spector, The Crystals, The Shangri-Las, Various Artists

February 3, 2014 By Joe Marchese 7 Comments

brill building comp2

Today, 1619 Broadway in the heart of New York City’s theatre district doesn’t particularly stand out. Despite the building’s ornate façade, 1619 appears to be just another office building on a busy thoroughfare populated with every kind of attention-grabbing signage.  But this building – along with its neighbor to the north, 1650 Broadway – is as much a part of rock and roll history as Sun Studios or Abbey Road.  1650 is the one and only Brill Building, incubator to some of the finest songs in

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Categories: News Tags: Burt Bacharach, The Coasters, The Crystals, The Drifters, The Everly Brothers

June 20, 2013 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

london american 1964

1964 will forever be remembered on American shores as the year of Beatlemania, when those four moptops from Liverpool led the British Invasion to the top of the pop charts.  That tale has been chronicled many times, but one of the most recent releases from U.K.-based label Ace tells the story of the year's American Invasion - via the American records imported to London on the London American label.  This latest volume in the long-running series (which now features an entry for each year between

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: Pop, R&B/Soul Tags: Lou Johnson, Louis Armstrong, Otis Redding, The Crystals, The Drifters, The Ronettes

March 11, 2013 By Joe Marchese 5 Comments

mann and weil born to be together1

Born to Be Together: could a more apropos title have been devised for a collection of the songs of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil?  Married since 1961, the team both defines and defies the phrase “unsung heroes.”  Without hit records as recording artists, Mann and Weil have never had the name recognition of their Brill Building-era compatriots like Carole King or Neil Sedaka, but these Grammy Award-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Famers are hardly unsung.  If all they’d ever written was the most

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Categories: News, Reviews Tags: The Crystals, The Drifters, The Monkees, The Righteous Brothers, The Ronettes

May 24, 2012 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

greenwich and barry1

The union of Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry was a brief one.  Married in 1962, the same year that they began a songwriting partnership, they were divorced in 1965.  Their professional partnership only continued for a short time thereafter.  And to this day, the team of Greenwich and Barry is spoken of in the same breath as two other successful Brill Building husband-and-wife teams, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (married 1961, still going strong!) and Gerry Goffin and Carole King (married 1959,

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Categories: News Formats: CD Genre: Pop Tags: Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry, The Crystals, The Monkees, The Ronettes

May 11, 2012 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

the crystals twist uptown1

It's once again time to go back to mono.  Sundazed has just announced the vinyl reissue of four classic albums from Phil Spector's Philles label.  On July 31, The Ronettes' Presenting The Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica by the Ronettes; Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah by Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans; and The Crystals' Uptown and He's A Rebel will all receive the Sundazed treatment.  All four albums were reissued on CD last year from Phil Spector Records and Legacy Recordings as part of The Philles

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Categories: News Tags: Phil Spector, The Crystals, The Ronettes, Vinyl

October 25, 2011 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

presenting ronettes

Whoa-oh, a-whoa-oh-oh-oh! Think of The Ronettes' wail, every bit as iconic a cry as a-whop-bop-a-loo-a-whop-bam-boom.  Doesn't rock and roll have a way of elevating onomatopoeia to poetry?  And no label made sweeter poetry in the first half of the 1960s than Philles Records.  The voices of Ronnie Spector, Darlene Love, La La Brooks, Barbara Alston and the rest spoke directly to America’s teenagers.  These women, alternately vulnerable and defiant, were little more than girls when they began

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Categories: News Formats: Box Sets Tags: Phil Spector, The Crystals, The Ronettes

October 25, 2011 By Mike Duquette Leave a Comment

spector philles box

It's Tuesday, but most of the new music this week has already been out for a day. But assuming you were too busy to get out to the shops, here's a look at what's new. And there's quite a bit! Various Artists, Phil Spector Presents The Philles Album Collection (Phil Spector Records/Legacy) Six of the first seven Philles albums presented in mono, along with a bonus disc of those delightfully out-there instrumental B-sides. Seriously, have you heard any of them? They're crazy. In a good way, that

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Categories: News, Release Round-Up Tags: Mumford & Sons, Neil Young, Nirvana, Paul Simon, Pearl Jam, Phil Spector, The Crystals, The Mamas and The Papas, The Monkees, The Ronettes, The Supremes, The Temptations

August 4, 2011 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

spector philles box

Well, get a load of that!  This is the photo I've been waiting for - and if you're reading this, chances are you've been waiting with bated breath, too!  As of August 4, we have official confirmation that Legacy's Phil Spector Presents the Philles Album Collection is, indeed, coming on October 18, along with a two-disc retrospective as part of the label's long-running Essential series. Most purchasers of Legacy's first wave of Philles Records reissues last February took immediate notice of a

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Categories: News Formats: Box Sets Tags: Phil Spector, The Crystals, The Ronettes

April 14, 2011 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

london american 1963

It’s 1963. Imagine a label that counted Roy Orbison, Darlene Love, James Brown, The Drifters and Jerry Lee Lewis all among its artists. While such an array of talent never convened under one roof in America, it was a very different story in the United Kingdom. The U.K.’s  Decca Record Company indeed brought all of those artists, and more, under the umbrella of its London American label. London American delivered the best in American pop, R&B and rock and roll to British audiences. Ace is

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Categories: News Tags: Roy Orbison, The Crystals, The Righteous Brothers, The Ronettes

February 22, 2011 By Joe Marchese 12 Comments

the very best of the crystals

If Phil Spector didn’t exist, someone would have had to invent him. Spector scored his first chart-topper as writer, artist and arranger in 1958 with “To Know Him is to Love Him” performed his by group, the Teddy Bears. But a 1960 apprenticeship with famed songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller convinced the ambitious young man that his future was behind the scenes as a producer. (His 1960 stint with Leiber and Stoller also yielded “Spanish Harlem,” which Spector co-wrote with Leiber.) With

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Categories: Reviews Tags: The Crystals, The Ronettes

February 22, 2011 By Mike Duquette Leave a Comment

the very best of phil spector 61 661

In another time, in another place, I would not be writing this review of Legacy's new Phil Spector compilation with a slight pang of melancholy. And you wouldn't be reading it with the possible tug at the heartsrings you might face now. Phil Spector was one of the most significant pop producers of the 20th century - a creator of pop music as a blissful, romantic, universal commodity - but recent events have ensured that anyone who speaks his name today does so with hesitation, with knowledge of

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Categories: Reviews Tags: The Crystals, The Righteous Brothers, The Ronettes

February 22, 2011 By Mike Duquette Leave a Comment

from memphis to hollywood

Johnny Cash, Bootleg 2: From Memphis to Hollywood (Columbia/Legacy) Rarities from the Man in Black, including rare radio performances, demos and single sides. (Official site) Various Artists, Wall of Sound: The Very Best of Phil Spector / The Ronettes, Be My Baby: The Very Best of the Ronettes / The Crystals, Da Doo Ron Ron: The Very Best of The Crystals / Darlene Love, The Sound of Love: The Very Best of Darlene Love (Phil Spector Records/Legacy) Legacy finally gets things going with their

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Categories: News, Release Round-Up Tags: The Crystals, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Monkees, The Ronettes

January 17, 2011 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

the very best of the crystals

When Sony announced in September 2009 that rights had been acquired from EMI Music Publishing to reissue Phil Spector's Philles catalogue after years of neglect from the ABKCO label, great anticipation was in the air. A major campaign was planned by Sony's Legacy division with projects in development including "Artist's Playlists, Best-of collections, and first-ever releases of Philles studio rarities - as well as facsimile reproductions of original singles and albums," but since that heady

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Categories: News Tags: The Crystals, The Ronettes

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