Marty Wilde - Collection 1958-62 (2019)

Marty Wilde was one of the coterie of British rock ‘n’ roll singers to be inspired by the likes of Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, and having become part of the management stable of impresario Larry Parnes, followed in the wake of other UK R&R pioneers like Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard to appear regularly on the TV pop shows like ‘6.5 Special’ and ‘Oh Boy’, which gave them a platform to make an early impression. With his band The Wildcats, he racked up a string of a dozen or more hits in the first five years of his core chart career covered by this anthology, often with cover versions of US hits but also writing his own material. This great-value 65-track 2-CD set (records were short in those days!) comprises all his A & B sides for Philips during this era, plus the tracks from his “Presenting Marty Wilde” EP along with the titles from his first two LPs “Wilde About Marty” and “The Versatile Mr. Wilde”, not otherwise included on singles. It includes all his career UK hits, notably the Top 10 classics “Endless Sleep”, “Donna”, “Teenager In Love”, “Sea Of Love”, “Bad Boy” and “Rubber Ball”. He is a fine performer, able to transcend the genres, and he has since appeared in musical theatre as well as still being active on the oldies circuit on 2019, not to mention being father of 80s star Kim Wilde, and this substantial memento of his primary career is a worthy recognition of those talents.