Donna Loren: The Very Best Of Donna Loren Featuring Beach Blanket Bingo CD Track Listing

A list by checkmate

Donna Loren The Very Best Of Donna Loren Featuring Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)
The Very Best Of Donna Loren Featuring Beach Blanket Bingo\n2001 Collectables Records\n\nOriginally Released January 16, 2001\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: True, this 26-song CD doesn't look at all like an authorized release. It's also true that 17 of the songs are on the official Beach Blanket Bingo: The Very Best of Donna Loren CD compilation, which has a couple of tracks ("Play Little Music Box Play" and "I Believe") that somehow didn't make it onto this anthology. Still, it does have nine cuts that aren't on Beach Blanket Bingo: The Very Best of Donna Loren, and if you hang out at specialist record stores, you'll probably be just as apt to find this CD as the other one. You might find it the preferable option, too, as there's more material and the sound's good (though one suspects it's not mastered from the original tapes), even if there's nothing in the way of liner notes except track listings and songwriting credits. As for the music, while Loren was a far better singer than most women (or men) playing bit parts in '60s teen beach movies, it's least-common-denominator '60s pop/rock. The production ambition is there, variously echoing the girl group sound, surf music, and late-period teen idol pop. What's missing? Really special songs, and a distinctive attitude on part of either the singer or her composers and producers. As for the tracks here not on the more high-profile, authorized Loren best-of, none are exceptional, and some are off-puttingly trivial ("I'm in Love with the Ticket Taker at the Bijou Movie," "On the Good Ship Lollipop"). But a few are, relatively speaking, among her better efforts, including the frivolous surf romp "Muscle Bustle" (co-written by Brian Wilson), the girl group tune "Johnny's Got Somethin'," and the more mature cuts "It's Such a Shame" and "As Long as I'm Holding You," which sound as though they date from later in the '60s than the rest of the package. -- Richie Unterberger\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nGreat Anticipation - but - buyer beware........, September 25, 2002 \nBy Michael B. Marshall "mikeymars"\n\nDonna Loren - who is an interesting story, more on her below - appeared in the non-speaking but singing role of "Donna" in four of the Beach Party movies. She briefly appears in a duet in the second (Muscle Beach Party) and perfomed does solos in three others. \nCompared to most female teen celebrities of the 60s, Donna was the proverbial renaissance girl. Only nineteen when she first appeared in the Beach Party series, she was already an experienced singer, model, actress and clothing designer.\n\nPrior to her Beach Party appearances, Donna had already spun a moderately successful career as a teen singer into a lucrative role as the "celebrity spokesmodel" for Dr. Pepper, and continued in those roles even after she started appearing in the AIP movies. On that tangent, think movie product placement deals are a recent trend? Think again - everyone sitting in the "Big Daddy's" club scenes in Muscle Beach Party just happens to have a bottle of -- guess what? (hint: think "Donna Loren...as spokesmodel for......") -- sitting in front of them. But Donna didn't stop there: in 1965, she started appearing in an ongoing singing guest spot on ABC's Shindig and even managed to cram in a guest star role (as Robin's girlfriend) on the Batman TV show. She also liked to design clothing and sew, and in 1964 spun that interest into a spokesperson deal with the Simplicity Pattern Company. \n\nAs far as Donna's recording career, it was a short one, running from the early to mid 60's and involved the release of scores of singles on a number of labels (the only album was the Capitol "Beach Blanket Bingo" LP). The material is hard to characterize, ranging from bubble gum pop ("I'm In Love With The Ticket Taker") to the grand diva-ish ("Everytime We Touch") to weird "let's invent the latest dance fad" stuff ("Do The Zonk"). Suffice to say she had an excellent but under-challenged voice; listening to her recordings of generally forgettable material, one is left wishing she had come under the wing of better agents and producers, ones who might have taken her down riskier but more substantive paths (case in point: Atlantic Records took such a risk in 1969 when they shipped fading, outdated pop diva Dusty Springfield down to Memphis to record with classic blues talent, the result being "Dusty in Memphis," a pop masterpiece that most reviewers now label as one of the greatest albums of the entire decade.) \n\nWhich leads to discussion of this CD. \n\nWhile it contains some other material, most of the songs on it are from Donna's "Donna Loren Sings songs from Beach Blanket Bingo" (Capitol, released October 1965). While Buena Vista used the four Beach Party movies as an opportunity to produce Annette releases, they for whatever reason passed (or were possibly outbid) on Beach Blanket Bingo. As a result, the fifth film in the series -- and considered by most critics to be the best - was snapped up by Capitol, who had in their arsenal multi-talented Donna, who was presumably chomping at the bit for a shot at an LP. So one sits down with great anticipation to listen to Donna Loren Sings Songs From Beach Blanket Bingo. \n\nHowever, that anticipation readily turns into disappointment. \n\nThis is because what appeared intriguing ends up being a conflicting listen: on the one hand, Donna was a much more capable singer than Annette, one with a unique style that mixed a strong, confident alto with emotion. On the other hand, management at Capitol clearly didn't know what to do with her or this material. Unlike Annette's carefully produced Buena Vista records (no matter how "silly" the content, Disney Managing Music Director Tutti Camarata always did it well), Donna's LP sounds like it was made in a hurry by people with little experience in guitar-based pop. And the results are frustrating to listen to.\n\nIn essence, the album was a huge waste of Donna's potential: the arrangements are unnecessarily busy, with overdone orchestration and chorus, and adding insult to injury everything is always played a little too fast. The result is a breathy, growling Donna who sounds like she's working much too hard to compete with it all. Wonderful Styner-Hemrick ballads like "It Only Hurts When I Cry" and "New Love" - which sounded great in the movie -- turn into blaring, overproduced yawns on the LP. Uptempo numbers like "Fly Boy" become hyper-speed pop, to the point where they are literally fatiguing to listen to. Frankly, the only half-way decent cut on the entire album is her version of the Hondell's The Cycle Set (sadly, their great original version of this song never appeared on any their records).\n\nWhat makes all this even more annoying is the fact Capitol was simultaneously producing some excellent female pop. As example, just a few months before Donna's album, Capitol released Jody Miller's Queen of the House LP, her second record and in my opinion one of the best pop albums made by any American female singer during the mid 60s (due not only to Miller's obvious talent but also some outstanding production work by the legendary Billy Strange). If only Donna had received the same treatment!\n\nDonna Loren Sings songs from Beach Blanket Bingo was released as Capitol 2323 (mono) and ST 2323 (stereo). At this time, there is also this compilation CD of Donna Loren material (orginally released in 1997), which includes the entire stereo version of this LP. If you are looking for an original 1965 LP copy of this abulm, understand they still do appear on online auctions, in fact copies come up on the web auction sites relatively frequently (most in mono, stereo is rare). Note that despite all the issues mentioned above, this LP has become a big, hot collectible, likely because of the wonderful close-up of a gorgeous twenty-one year old Donna on the cover. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nGOOD CD, BUT I AGREE WITH WHAT IS ALREADY POSTED, June 14, 2003 \nBy G. A Siessel (Leesburg, Florida United States)\nThis is a great collection of Donna Loren's songs. I LOVED the Beach Blanket Bingo Movie and some of the songs from that movie were great. I do wish "It Only Hurts When I Cry" was kept as a ballad since it's impact is lost in this uptempo version (or at least have both versions on the CD). It is very 60's sound and similar to Lesley Gore's albums of the same time frame. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nThe original TEN--10!--songs + 9 bonus tracks, October 19, 2001 \nBy jon sieruga (Redlands, CA USA)\n\nThe previous reviewer stumps me--this is Donna Loren's original album("Beach Blanket Bingo")plus NINE bonus tracks! What is there to be disappointed about? The first ten songs were included on Donna's Capitol album and the rest are all bonuses(including the rare single-only "Call Me" b/w "Smokey Joes" and another single, "Ten Good Reasons" b/w "Ninety Day Guarantee"). But he's REALLY wrong in calling Annette Funicello a 'no-talent'(this obviously not true). Both girls were wonderful in the "Beach" flicks, but this CD gives fans a chance to hear Donna's renditions of some of Annette's songs. If he wants to be upset about anything, it's the fact that Donna's output from the Challenge label isn't included(I know of one particular song from these early sessions, "I'm In Love With The Ticket Taker At The Bijou Movie"). Otherwise, RELAX and ENJOY!!! \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nDonna, Finally on CD!!, July 25, 2002 \nBy William G. Ratcliffe "wearevinyl" (Lawrenceville, New Jersey United States)\n\nAlthough i was initially disappointed with the lp release of the songs from the film "Beach Blanket Bingo", i had to give Capitol credit as they knew Buena Vista would not release a soundtrack album. A big blunder on Disney's part, and also on American International, who had the capability to release the original tracks from the film on either Vee Jay Records or Tower Records (a subsidiary of Capitol), 2 labels that delt with the film company in the past, and present. Upon hearing the lp, it was obvious that Les Baxter's work was absent, and sounding like a full orchestra, H.B. Barnum's work was very much out of place with the 'teen' star, almost making her sound like Anita Bryant. The cd here is good for one reason or another, mostly for the hard to find tracks that are not easy to assemble elsewhere in a short period of time. For the soundtrack itself, i would rather pass and just make a cassette of the original soundtrack from the film, edit the background and burn the songs onto cd, which is the only way to get the songs you want. Maybe writing to MGM could help, since that studio now owns the rights to all of American International's product, and could maybe make a new soundtrack from the film with the master tapes (which still exist). I am sure that would not be a problem. Otherwise, this cd is the only alternative. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nEnjoy the OTHER things on it besides "Beach Blanket", April 30, 2004 \nBy uthungus (San Francisco, CA)\nA great bio piece someone else put together on Donna Loren earlier; but come on! Knocking the bulk of this collection because it happens to also cover the "Beach Blanket Bingo" soundtrack is a bit short-sighted. Loren's (available recorded) singing credits are in their own right pretty outstanding vocally. But face it, many of the songs in "BBB" were pretty crummy to begin with, no matter who did them ("Fly Boy", "I am my Ideal", "These are the Good Times")! This collection is worth having for the better songs - "Blowing out the Candle", "Ten Good Reasons", "Only Hurts when I Cry", "I'll Never Change Him". Also her versions of "Call Me", "If you Really Love Me", "Smokey Joe's" etc.; and the downright silly, whimsical numbers like "I'm in love with the Ticket Taker" and "Johnny's Got Something". I hope there will eventually be a further, more thorough release of Loren's other works that also include some of her "Shindig" performances like "Wedding Song", "You've Got Personality", etc.. Lastly, in my own "fan follow-up" search on Loren's whereabouts, she does have a clothing line in Hawaii with its own website. I don't know if she maintains the site herself, but speaking as a "new generation" fan, she doesn't seem to respond to people writing in. By contrast, another fave of mine Diane Renay sent me a nice response the very same day when I wrote her a fan letter email. To me that little extra effort means a lot!\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nThe Orginal Dr. Pepper Girl, January 31, 2001 \nBy A Customer\n\nPreviously, if you wanted anything by Donna Loren, you had to find an obscure import CD - or the original Capital LP.\n\nCollectibles is getting better. They deserve credit for reissuing stuff that no one else will. If you've ever listened to Collectibles Diane Renay reissue, you know what I mean about "getting better". Looks like now they at least attempt to find stereo sources for their reissues. It's unknown whether they used master tapes for this issue, since they routinely don't include such information. \n\nThat being said, the sound quality is very good on this CD. Tracks 1-10 are in great sounding true stereo. The remaining tracks 11-19 are mono. Donna Loren had a busy career in the sixties as the Dr. Pepper girl and several appearances in those beach movies. Donna's voice was well suited for slow ballads or a faster rock tempo. According to the CD insert, Donna recorded the entire Beach Blanket Bingo LP for Capital Records in 14 hours straight. Apparently this was done quickly to capitalize on the success of the movie. Indeed, I think her Capital LP could have been done better with a little more time. Donna's voice is much better than the arrangements for those songs. I believe the movie version of "It Only Hurts When I Cry" was better than the LP version she recorded after the movie. Her version of "I Think, You Think" is also a cute song - first recorded by Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon (but never released).\n\nChances are you won't be ordering this CD unless you are already familiar with her, so I won't bore you with the details of her career. However, currently she now has her own business. The website for her clothing business includes info on her sixties career. ... You can find this info in the CD pamphlet. \n\n\nHalf.com Album Notes\nFull title: The Very Best Of Donna Loren Featuring Beach Blanket Bingo.
This rock cd contains 19 tracks and runs 42min 54sec.
Freedb: ef0a0c13
Buy: from Amazon.com

Categories

Latest lists

Donna Loren: The Very Best Of Donna Loren Featuring Beach Blanket Bingo CD Track Listing

Category

Tags

cyList

Legal