The long-running series
Golden Age of American Rock 'n' Roll
from
Ace
has rewarded long-suffering fans of early
rock
and
pop
with a bounty of late-'50s and early-'60s songs, most of which reached the Top 40, but have been under-served by reissues since. The
Eric
label, with its own series,
Teen Time: The Young Years of Rock & Roll
, picked up yet more slack with its 20-song collections of
hits -- most of them on the rare side -- that serve the same purpose as the
volumes and pay similarly high dividends. The first volume of
Teen Time
, subtitled "Love Me Forever," focuses on
ballads
and love songs (not all of them downtempo). It casts the net wider than
volumes, taking in several low chart entries, as well as a few later hits from the mid-'60s, but narrows the focus on material by including more artists with
jazz
-vocal tropes and ignoring
R&B
(with only a few exceptions). Any listeners with a dedicated interest in '50s
will still find at least a few undiscovered nuggets here, like
Valerie Carr
's bewitchingly inquisitive
"When the Boys Talk About the Girls"
or
Cathy Carr
's mildly silly
"First Anniversary."
None of the tracks have been overplayed (at least not since the '60s), and every one is a high-caliber production despite the novelty factor. Also appreciated is the fact that both
and producers
Bill Buster
,
Tom Daly
, and
Mark Mathews
have high standards of sound quality. ~ John Bush