Search - Innocents :: Complete Indigo Recordings

Without Kathy Young, well they're...

Lawrence Paul Guidry III | New Orleans | 03/01/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Okay, I'm not bashing this group, but the cd is very low key. Nothing stands out at all, very (pardon the pun) monotone! It's great to see all the stuff on one cd as a collector, but without Kathy Young... well... just buy it and you be the judge.

Don't worry about the quality, it's clear and crisp from the master tapes with false starts and a great booklet."

Why A 25-Track Volume On These Guys?

09/11/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I mean, with all of two hit singles to their credit, would it not have been better to put out an album combining those two with the three they had in their shared billing with Kathy Young, and their B-sides, all on the Indigo label? Then add in a few of the solo cuts included here along with a few album or non-hits done with Kathy? Or perhaps both sides of the one disc they cut for the Andex label (a subsidiary of Keen) as a quartet known as The Echoes back in 1959 (Time b/w Dee Dee Di Oh. That would at least have made some sense.



There is a Dee Dee Di Oh in this volume (as well as a cut titled Time Makes You Change), but it's not clear from the two pages of liner notes written by Rob Finnis in 1992 if these are, in fact, the Andex sides. There is no discography of te contents, and all it says after both on the reverse is an indication that they date to 1961.



In any event, to be fair, they did score on the charts first, in late summer 1960, when Honest I Do reached # 28 Billboard Pop Hot 100 b/w My Baby Hully Gullys on Indigo 105. Then, in late October, a cover of a 1954 recording by the R&B group, The Rivileers (did not chart) called A Thousand Stars was released on Indigo 108 billed to Kathy Young with The Innocents, b/w Eddie My Darling, and it rose to # 3 Hot 100/# 6 R&B in December. Then, late that year on Indigo 111, Gee Whiz, billd to The Innocents, hit # 15 R&B/# 28 Hot 100 b/w Please Mr. Sun. And that would be it for solo gits for lead James West, bass Al Candelaria, and tenor/guitarist Darron Stankey.



Early in 1961 Kathy Young with The Innocents took Happy Birthday Blues to # 30 Hot 100 b/w Someone To Love on Indigo 115, and in September, Magic Is The Night to # 80 Hot 100 b/w Du Du'nt Du on Indigo 125.



Not a bad little album, with beautiful sound reproduction and informative notes (as is usually the case with Ace of London), and it does contain all four sides of their two hit singles. But in the end it's a bit of a "Bear Family overkill" - a reference to that distributor in Germany famous for putting out multi-track compilations for one- or two-hit wonders (see Robin Luke as an example)."