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One Of Many George Goldner Products

10/03/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Erstwhile NY City garment dealer George Goldner's foray into the world of music recording would make a great film. Not only was he was one the earliest practitioners of "payola" with his late 1940s Tico label (where his biggest star was Latino jazz musician Tito Puente) but those he signed to record for his many other labels in the 1950's reads like a Who's Who of the early days of R&R.



On labels such as Rama, Gee, Gone, End, Roulette, Red Bird, and Blue Cat he recorded the likes of The Dubs, Cleftones, Flamingos, Chantels, Little Anthony & The Imperials, Starlighters, Crows, Wrens, Valentines, Five Crowns, Heartbeats, Channels, Isley Brothers, Trickles and, of course, Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers (among many more).



Lymon was just 14 when he, Herman Santiago, Jimmy Merchant, Joe Negroni and Sherman Games burst onto the scene in early 1956 with Why Do Fools Fall In Love? Billed to The Teenagers Featuring Frankie Lymon, it went all the way to # 1 R&B, where it stayed for five weeks) and # 6 Billboard Pop Top 100 b/w Please Be Mine on the Gee label. Of course it was at once covered by everyone and his aunt, but this was one time that the small label original won out, as versions by Gale Storm (# 9 Pop), The Diamonfs (# 12 Pop), and Gloria Mann (# 56 Pop) paled by comparison.



Later that spring, and with the billing now changed to Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, I Want You To Be My Girl began its climb to # 3 R&B/# 13 Top 100 b/w I'm Not A Know It All and it seemed as though Goldner had struck real gold this time with a group that was going to be consistently high on the lucrative Pop charts. But late that summer Who Can Explain, although finishing at a healthy # 7 R&B, while its flipside, I Promise To Remember, settled in at # 10 R&B, the performances on the Top 100 were disappointing as both registered at a mediocre # 57 (the A-side considered a "follow-along" hit at that).



By late fall the news got worse as The ABC's Of Love again did well on the R&B charts, going to # 8, but staggered to a # 77 Top 100 b/w Share. Following several failed singles, they next appeared on the charts in July 1957 when the prophetic Out In The Cold Again could only make the R&B charts, albeit at a healthy # 10 b/w Miracle In The Rain (omitted from this compilation). Then came a brief ray of hope in August when a cover of the old Benny Goodman tune, Goody Goody, managed to get to # 20 Top 100 b/w Creation Of Love. But it was shut out on the R&B charts and, in fact, they would never gain either chart again as a group. To this point all of their records had been backed by the Jimmy Wright orchestra,



In 1960, Frankie would emerge one more time as a solo artist when his cover of Little Bitty Pretty One went to # 58 Billboard Pop Hot 100 for Roulette b/w a re-recording of Creation Of Love. His backing orchestra was that of Rudy Traylor. Eight years later he would be dead at age 25 from a drug overdose.



This 1989 Rhino release has all the hits and most of the B-sides in excellent sound quality, and with the fold-out insert are six pages of background notes written by Bob Hyde, along with several nice photos of Frankie and the group. On the back of the disc is a partial discography of the contents, lacking only chart details."