VA - Hard to Find 45's on CD, Vol. 1: 1955-60 (1996)

The first installment of the Hard to Find 45's series is, like all of them, a smorgasbord of Top 40 hits, some of them indeed very hard to find on CD or even hear on the radio. Some of them are really not that hard to find on CD, though this disc (like every one in this series) takes pains to present original 45 RPM single versions, often in stereo. This volume concentrates on the first five years or so of rock & roll's popularity, and though rather pop-oriented, it does cover a good amount of variety within that scope. There's pop-rockabilly from Ricky Nelson (two of his three 1957 Verve hits) and the Big Bopper (the "Chantilly Lace" sequel "Big Bopper's Wedding"), poppy doo wop (the Impalas' "Sorry [I Ran All the Way Home]," the Safaris' "Image of a Girl," the Jamies' "Summertime, Summertime," the Poni-Tails' "Born Too Late"), pop-soul (Sarah Vaughan's "Broken-Hearted Melody," Brook Benton's "Fools Rush In [Where Angels Fear to Tread]," Jimmy Jones' "Handy Man" and "Good Timin'"), fairly tough pop/rock (Johnny Preston's "Cradle of Love," Conway Twitty's "Lonely Blue Boy"), and insipid teen idol balladry (Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel"). What the big collectors want to zero in on, though, are the rarely heard or anthologized hits. Those would include Chuck Miller's boogie-jazz/R&B "The House of Blue Lights," a pretty cool 1955 Top Ten hit that somehow gets ignored in the recounts of the first close-to-rock singles to make the hit parade; Sonny Knight's smoky R&B ballad "Confidential"; the Voxpoppers' average pop/doo wop 1958 Top 20 hit "Wishing for Your Love"; and Gino & Gina's lightweight male-female R&B-rock duet "(It's Been a Long Time) Pretty Baby," a number 20 hit in 1958.