This is another playlist dedicated to my childhood friend Larry Dietrich. Larry was a fan of doo-wop and I think he would have liked this collection that Bobby Vinton released as an album in 1963, "The Greatest Hits of the Golden Groups." I remembered having this album -- I was 16 years old at the time and these were considered "oldies" -- most of them popular when I was 10 years old or younger, so the album introduced me to the sounds of the '50's. I found the album on my shelf and played it. I thought I'd like to share it with Larry. I can't really do that anymore, so I decided to share it with everybody (at least those few who visit this website). Here's a collection of oldies as sung by Bobby Vinton -- see if you agree that he does pretty well with them.
Bobby Vinton started out as a band leader for Epic Records with little success. But in 1962 he picked "Roses Are Red" out of a reject pile and got it released as a vocal single. It went to #1 and launched his career as a vocalist. But his next singles stalled outside of the Billboard top 20. Then in 1963 he became a superstar as "Blue on Blue" (#3), "Blue Velvet" (#1) and "There I've Said It Again" (#1) made him a superstar. Inbetween "Roses Are Red" and "Blue on Blue" Vinton recorded an album covering songs made popular in the 1950's and titled it "The Greatest Hits of the Golden Groups." He released one single from the album, "Over The Mountain" -- it made it to #21 on the Billboard Hot 100.
It's interesting to note that although the album says it's the "Golden Groups," selections from solo artists Jesse Belvin and Bobby Helms are included. I find the inclusion of Jesse Belvin's "Goodnight My Love" strange as it wasn't a popular record (although many of these songs didn't do as well on the charts as you might think). Maybe they should have done The Spaniels' "Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight" instead.
Side 1 Title Original Artist
1 "Over the Mountain (Across the Sea)" Johnnie & Joe
2 "Silhouettes" The Rays
3 "Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)" The Penguins
4 "Only You (And You Alone)" The Platters
5 "I'll Remember (In the Still of the Nite)" The Five Satins
6 "My Special Angel" Bobby Helms
Side 2
1 "The Great Pretender" The Platters
2 "Tears on My Pillow" Little Anthony & The Imperials
3 "Sincerely" The Moonglows
4 "Teardrops" Lee Andrews & The Heartbeats
5 "A Thousand Miles Away" The Heartbeats
6 "Goodnight My Love" Jesse Belvin
The slides shown on the jukebox are for the original recording.