Notes & Personnel Info |  | Performers include: Van Morrison, The Lovin' Spoonful, Sir Douglas Quintet, The Mamas & The Papas, Left Banke, The Ventures, The Box Tops, Bobby Fuller 4, Bob Lind, Hobres. | | Contains 30 tracks. | | Conceived as a counterpart to Golden Age of American Rock'n'Roll, Ace's excellent anthology series covering the first decade of U.S. rock, Chartbusters USA does the same thing for American rock spanning 1964-69. It's perhaps less valuable than the Golden Age series because the material anthologized, at least to judge by the first installment, is somewhat less difficult to acquire, or hear on oldies radio, than the Golden Age stuff. There's no conceptual thread running through the selections, except general top-of-the-line quality: you get "California Dreamin'," "Dance to the Music," "Hi Heel Sneakers," "Brown Eyed Girl," "Walk Away Renee," "Psychotic Reaction," and "Green Tambourine" right next to each other. The only truly hard-to-find item is the Soul Sisters' mid-chart soul hit "I Can't Stand It" (covered by the Spencer Davis Group), though some of these hits, like "Elusive Butterfly" (Bob Lind), "G.T.O." (Ronny & the Daytonas), and the original 1965 hit version of Sir Douglas Quintet's "She's About a Mover," don't turn up on various-artists collections often. Still, if you're seeking a wall-to-wall blast of mid-and-late 1960s classic American rock singles, it's real good value, with 30 songs, nearly every one a classic. Hugo Montenegro's "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" seems an odd choice in the midst of a very rock-oriented disc, though. ~ Richie Unterberger | | Ace's GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN ROCK 'N' ROLL series celebrates the best of US popular music in the '50s and pre-Beatles '60s. With the CHARTBUSTERS series, Ace highlights the years 1964-1969, a period in which US artists responded to the British Invasion with their own twist on the sound. The Lovin' Spoonful and the Mamas & The Papas drew on their folk club origins; the Seeds reduced the beat/R&B sound to its very essence, while groups like Sly & The Family Stone pioneered new sounds. | | Across its 30 tracks, CHARTBUSTERS USA covers virtually the whole spectrum of '60s sounds, from the funky New Orleans sound of Lee Dorsey to the bubblegum pop-psych of the Lemon Pipers, via girl group masterpiece "Remember (Walkin' In The Sand)" and the retro sound of the Bobby Fuller 4. Every one's a Billboard hit, only two falling short of the top 20. There have been many such collections, but few have been assembled with such attention to variety, sound quality and sequencing. |
Producer: Rob Finnis (Compilation) |
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