The idea behind
Radio Gold: Special Bigger in Britain Edition
is specific but good: round up songs by American artists that wound up being bigger smashes in the United Kingdom than they were in their homeland. The 24 songs here are from a very specific period -- 1956-1963, aka the years after
Elvis
and before
the Beatles
. During this time, rock & roll sat side by side with sock-hop pop, and the 24 selections here ever so slightly lean toward the latter, favoring novelties, pieces of exaggerated Americana, and cloying pop over straight-up rock & roll or R&B. Perhaps not so coincidentally, there aren't many straight-up classics here -- the album-opening "Blue Bayou" by
Roy Orbison
and
Jim Reeves
' "Welcome to My World" are the closest, followed by
Eddie Cochran
's "My Way" (a staple of British rock & roll groups), then
Buddy Holly
's "Reminiscing" and
Frankie Laine
's "Rawhide," although much of its appeal is down to
the Blues Brothers
-- but it's certainly fascinating to hear the songs that wound up climbing the U.K. charts. This is a time capsule of pre-
Beatles
British pop, sometimes surprisingly swinging (
Gene Vincent
's "Pistol Packin' Mama"), sometimes quite sweet (
Del Shannon
's "Two Kinds of Teardrops"), but often kind of corny...which doesn't mean it's not a good time, of course. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine