Search - Various Artists :: Red Bird Story

Red Bird's sing!

Peter Joyce | Scotland | 10/07/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have this on VINYL and will certainly be protecting this rarity with the CD. I recently dug out the album to let a friend hear the original recording of "Go Now", he thought the Moody Blues was the first! Of course it's the collection of Shangli-La's songs that make this a biggie for me. So underated!The best of the period, in my opinion.Enjoy"

A remarkable collection, get it before it's gone!

Ward J. Lamb | slate hill, new york United States | 03/16/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you are a lover of 60's teen pop this is your bag. Endless well mastered hits by many of the Brill Building artists bring one back to great records by the Ad-Libs, Cookies Shangri-las and many others. There is no other set like this one except "The Brill Building Sound", now out of print! Any girl group lover or pop music die-hard needs this! I never leave home without it.."

Expansive Tiger/Daisy/Red Bird/Blue Cat set

hyperbolium | Earth, USA | 10/14/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Lieber & Stoller's successes as songwriters and producers (particularly with Atlantic) are well documented, but their later work as owners of the Tiger, Daisy, Red Bird and Blue Cat labels has only been sporadically essayed. After having been sold to then-partner George Goldner, the label's assets were subsequently picked up by Shelby Singleton (who not only scooped up Sun Records' assets, but struck gold on his own with Jeannie C. Riley), and eventually licensed to the UK Charly label. Charly issued a pair of fine Red Bird LP compilations in the late-70s, and subsequently turned out this jam-packed 4-CD collection in 1991.



Other labels, including Taragon, Varese, and Sundazed, have issued higher fidelity single-disc collections (apparently remastered from tapes found subsequent to Charly's issues, including generous helpings of true stereo not found here), but none match the depth of this set. The 96 tracks, all mono except for a rechanneled version of "Bad as They Come," represent the largest single helping of the labels' output that can be found; the sound is clean, but much of the mastering is not as dynamic as the original records. In addition to well-known tracks by The Dixie Cups and Shangri-Las, and tracks reissued on the labels mentioned above (and one-off appearances, such as Kane & Abel's "He Will Break Your Heart" on the "Phil's Spectre II" collection), this set stretches throughout the four labels' archives to capture many classic sides of soul, New Orleans inflected pop, and girl-group harmonies that are unavailable elsewhere on CD.



The set's booklet includes three separate essays, two of which are rather poorly edited, and one of which seem to be an article that pre-dated the set's composition. It'd be great if someone did a high-fidelity version of this box with truly detailed song and discographical notes, but that would only earn a sixth or seventh star; the 96 tracks captured here are easily worth five stars on their own. [©2005 hyperbolium dot com]"