Hard to Find Jukebox Classics 1964 Rock, Rhythm & Pop / Various

Hit Parade records is a division of Eric Records, so What I say about them applies here as well. Those of us who are completists, working on musical projects or just fans find out very quickly that most Cd collections have the same songs, more or less, the big hits of whatever decade. How many times did I buy a collection that had one song I wanted and fourteen I already had. Another trick was to buy a one hit wonder's Greatest Hits CD, and though some are interesting, others had little to offer besides that one hit. And even in these days of buying MP3 versions of individual songs, there are still many songs unavailable that way, especially when you go back to the Fifties and Early Sixties, which is the general territory of Eric. A British label, Ace, is similar but they rarely venture post British Invasion whereas Eric has even done some 70's and 80's material.You can be confident with this label. It's the kind of label where the people involved love the music, know their stuff and are dedicated to getting it right. You'll find only original masters here, engineered by people who know how it should sound, and highly informative booklets that discuss every track. The licensing of the songs only lasts so long so get them now. Once before most fell out of print and were selling for around $100.00Fortunately The Jukebox Classics series is recent (this one being 2014) so you have more time to consider it.The difference here is in the organizing principle, and everything else is exactly like the Hard To Find 45's series. In this case they seem to want to differentiate a new series in which each disc has hits from the same year, where the 45's series mixes years. The hard-To-Find aspect holds pretty true for the songs in this series just like in the first.1964 was the year of transition between the Early Sixties and the rest of the decade, and not just in music but in every other way. The British Invasion and Beatlemania form the basic dividing line that began a tidal wave of change. But they were just part of it and a result of it, not a cause of it. It was much bigger than a musical fad - which is what most people thought it was - it was more like a critical mass had been reached and the explosion happened. In any case, the British Invasion was big, but not that big. It was new and it got a lot of attention from the media, but all in all about fifteen British artists had hits, and even some of them were one or two hit wonders. There wasn't a total onslaught of British artists, and the American charts were still predominantly American. The only time that seemed like an onslaught was January-March with the first blast of Beatlemania when every third song seemed to be a Beatles-song and they were joined by Dusty Springfield, The Searchers and The Dave Clark Five.What was different, and truly strange, was that most of the big artists of the Early Sixties absolutely vanished and most of the American artists of 1964 were new. The only Early Sixties artists that made it through were the newer ones and they generally had their last top ten hit or two in 1964 and afterward only lower charting songs with a few exceptions until they too vanished around 1967. These included Leslie Gore, Gene Pitney, Jan and Dean, Ray Charles, Roy Orbison, the Four Seasons and all of the Girl Groups. Even Elvis had but one top ten hit between 1963 & 1968 (Crying In the Chapel, 1965). The Beach Boys made it through and stayed on top but they never sang about surfing again. Penetration by the Pyramids was the last instrumental surf hit in early '64 and is included here. Most of the old R&B artists vanished but Motown exploded into a hitmaking powerhouse. There were still girl groups but they were new ones like The Dixie Cups and The Shangri-Las. A very strange year, indeed.What Eric says in their booklet is that they want to help set the record straight and they do a good job, though there's certainly enough left to do a Volume 2, which I hope they do. Of course some of the Brits are included; it wouldn't be a portrait of the year without them. The collection begins with House of the Rising Sun by the Animals, the harder, darker side of the British Invasion in its second wave in the Fall of '64, and is followed by the Kink's All Day and All of the Night, the hardest rocking thing imaginable. It was a revelation of the possibilities of an electric guitar band. There had been nothing like it before. Chad & Jeremy were the soft side of the British with an acoustic guitar sound that showed their folk roots and created a several year pop career for them; Yesterday's Gone was their first hit in the Summer of '64.Early '64 is here with Diane Renay's sailor songs (both of them, too) courtesy of Bob Crewe and Eddie Rambeau, and Terry Stafford's not so coincidentally Elvis-sound on Suspicion. Major Lance hit with a mellow song by Curtis Mayfield with the odd title," Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um". Dusty Springfield hit the charts right along with the Beatles with her dynamic performance of I Only Want to Be With You. Leslie Gore's You Don't Own Me was so big it got played as often as I Want to Hold Your hand. Instrumentals include not only Penetration but the Ventures redo of their 1960 hit as Walk Don't Run '64. Though not a surf tune, they took advantage of the reverb and "wet" sound that had been developed by the surf guitarists and had a big hit in the late summer. The Summer of '64's biggest surprise was Dean Martin's monster hit, Everybody Loves Somebody, which was so big it was one of the Top Ten of the Year and revived his recording career. There's a rockabilly sound to both Gene Simmons' (the original one) Haunted House and Johnny Rivers' Mountain of Love.Ronny & the Daytonas' G.T.O. was only one of several car songs that year with others by The Beach Boys, Jan & Dean, Hondells and Rip Chords with Ronny practically sneering, "'Cause I'm the coolest thing around, little buddy gonna shut you down". Just the opposite was the sound of The New Christy Minstrels, a folk era sound that already was a bit retro and more easy listening than folk. Still, a nice song. A great song was Harlem Shuffle by Bob & Earl. This was the wildest, most hard-hitting, exciting R&B song in a while in an incredible performance by the duo. Wouldn't you know it came out at the height of Beatlemania and got lost in the process. Fortunately it was recorded by other artists over the years from The Righteous Brothers to The Rolling Stones, so it wasn't totally forgotten.Of course there are a lot more songs on this collection and they are well chosen by people who know the era. As usual they include some songs that weren't hits if they think they are interesting. Like I said, there's so much in 1964 that another volume would be nice. There's Cliff Richards and Danny Williams, Jack Jones and the Ray Charles Singers. There's Peter & Gordon, Cilla Black, The Honeycombs and the Searchers. There's the surprise hits of Al Hirt and the Latin sound of the Premiers.How about The Reflections, Nancy Wilson, Chuck Berry,Bobby Freeman and a lot more.Most of these songs have been recreated in stereo even if there are no stereo masters. This will be controversial to some people who will only want the mono originals. I have most of these in mono on other collections so that's no problem for me. I enjoy hearing the songs in a fresh way. I might add that this is a true stereo arrived at through computer technology and not one of those primitive processes like Duophonic that were around in the Sixties. Remember, we only heard these songs on car radios and the like so we never heard them with good sound at all. Some purists won't like this however, so I thought I'd point it out.

Alot of these songs have never been on any other compilations!!!!♥️

I hate to sound like an ad, but the folks at Hit Parade records has done it again with another collection of hits, rarities and first-time stereo. Some of Eric/Complete 60's/Hit Parade's DES (Digitally Extracted Stereo) remixes didn't impress me at all. They would sound alright in the car or on small computer speakers, but played back on good headphones or loud on my 100 watt component stereo you could hear some digital artifacts (a "watery" phasing effect) or a channel delay effect that reminded me too much like the old Capitol "Duophonic" fake stereo.But on this new CD Hit's Parade's DES remixing and mastering engineers techniques (or software) have greatly improved. You could fool a lot of skeptical stereo oldies fanatics into thinking these were remixed right from the original multi-track tapes. Its amazing to hear "House of the Rising Sun" and "Navy Blue" in first time stereo. And the DES remix of "Twine Time" in such clean sounding stereo is a revelation after many CD reissues of the mono version that sounded like they were dubbed from distorted 45's or 10th generation master tapes. Also thanks for including 29 songs when most American reissue companies usually us fans give us 20, 16 or less songs!About my only gripe is the inclusion of not-so-rare (and overplayed by oldies/classic hits radio) songs like "You Don't Own Me" (I'd rather have had the rare mono 45 version that doesn't have Lesley's voice multi-tracked) "All Day and All of The Night", "Little GTO" or "Everybody Loves Somebody" all which have all been well compiled in the past. I'd rather have more mid-charting and regional rarities that are not on CD anywhere. Otherwise this is another winner from Hit Parade, and if you loved their earlier "Hard to Find Jukebox Classics" releases it's another must-buy.

This disc excels in a number of different ways. The selection is excellent, mixing the very well known like "All Day and All Of the Night", "I'm Into Something Good" and "Everybody Loves Somebody" with the less available but totally memorable "Haunted House", Today" and "Twine Time."The DES is impressive. "House Of the Rising Sun" is exactly as you'd want it: Guitar on one side, organ on the other. "Navy Blue" sounds so natural, you forget it's not real stereo. Nothing gimmicky. "Penetration" doesn't lose any of the heaviness, as it probably would with real stereo. In this sense, DES bests the real thing. This applies to "Twine time, too. "Haunted House" is cool to hear in stereo - even if it isn't real stereo ' after all these years.And then there's the sound quality. "You Don't Own Me", "Walk Away", "Yesterday's Gone" and many others sound better here than anything else I have. "I Only Want to Be With You" FINALLY gets the ( real ) stereo mix it deserves. The previous one - with the vocal dub left off - was awful. This one does Dustys gem service. True stereo mixes on "Walking In the Rain" ( Ronettes ), "Walk--Don't Run '64", "The Name Game", "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um [ Curious Mind ]" , "Mountain of Love" ( Johnny Rivers ), "Today", and "Walk Away" help make this and excellent, good sounding collection a must have. So must have it!

As with the HTF Jukebox Classics1963, this is another brilliant nostalgic CD to have. A lot of great songs on this one from 1964 and they brought back a lot of memories. Another fantastic CD to have if you're in to nostalgia. Hope they continue a series with the 1963 set and this one. Definitely one to have!

a very good selection of some rarely heard tracks all original copies in excellent quality

memorabile quel 1964! e sicuramente lo fu anche per la colonna sonora che lo caratterizzò: Beatles in testa che proprio in quell'anno diedero il via alla British Invasion con cui si apre questa raccolta dove, però, possiamo trovare una variegata selezione del meglio offerto in quel fantastico anno: dal beat al pop, dal surf al rock strumentale, dai gruppi vocali femminili alla black music. Un must fatto di nostalgia e buona, buonissima musica come, purtroppo, non si sente e non si fa più.

Enjoyed. Nice to hear some of the old ones in stereo. Good selection and variety of music. all tracks exceptional. The only thing I might point out is I think, according to what I know, is "Navy Blue" was actually out in 1963. Other than that, well worth the buy!

Beautifully mastered sound quality. Great songs from a stellar year. I bought it specifically for 'Navy Blue' by Diane Renay, an earworm song for me at the age of 10.