THE CHANTELS: THERE'S OUR SONG AGAIN (1961)
1) I Can't Take It; 2) Never
Let Go; 3) Believe Me My Angel; 4) C'Est Si Bon; 5) IFIC; 6) My Darling; 7) I'm
The Girl; 8) I; 9) My Memories Of You; 10) I'll Walk Alone; 11) I'm Confessin';
12) Goodbye To Love.
In between The Chantels' first and second
album, a lot of things happened to the band: they released a few more,
commercially unsuccessful, singles; they lost Arlene Smith, who embarked upon
an even more obscure solo career, and carried on as a harmony-singing trio for
a short while; and, finally, re-emerged around 1961 with a new lead singer
(Annette Smith) and a bit more commercial luck, scoring a decent hit with
ʽLook In My Eyesʼ. Not all of these changes are reflected on their second LP,
which, I assume, they only got awarded from End Records after having already
left the label — predictably, it consists of A- and B-sides and leftovers
recorded in 1959-1960, both with Arlene still at the top and after she'd
already gone, and also including a couple of tracks marking the arrival of
Annette in Arlene's place. At least, this is what I can establish from a brief
comparison of conflicting sources (I do so believe, for instance, that the
current Wikipedia article on The Chantels confuses their second and third LP,
and online discographies are an even bigger mess).
Anyway, what cannot be confused is the quality
of the material, and if you liked the girls in their solid doo-wop era, you
will almost certainly like them in the transitional period as well, since the
songs are predictably more diverse. ʽI Can't Take It (There's Our Song Again)ʼ,
with a mighty bomb of high-to-low-range desperation from Arlene, starts things
off in very traditional doo-wop fashion; but already ʽNever Let Goʼ shows them
coming to terms with the twist movement, and that Arlene could easily belt it
out at faster tempos without diluting any of the passion. With ʽI'm
Confessin'ʼ, on the other hand, they make a retro move, covering an old
standard, but upgrading it to modern soul standards; not that it helps a lot or
anything.
Group harmony is king on ʽC'Est Si Bonʼ, an
almost inescapable (for most pop outfits of the time) attempt to «frenchify»
(or, more correctly, gallicize) the
sound, because, you know, there's nothing sexier than hearing a bunch of
African-American girls from the Bronx fight their way through a couple of
seductively mispronounced French phrases. (Actually, ʽC'Est Ci Bonʼ was even
the title of an EP released by End Records in 1958, with the same cover of the
girls in Southern Belle outfits that they used for We Are The Chantels — crass!). Much better is ʽIFICʼ, a jolly fast
kiddie R&B romp in the style of ʽJim Dandyʼ or, more accurately, Elvis'
ʽTeddy Bearʼ (the song title is actually an abbreviation for
"terrific", but don't ask me why).
The new singer, Annette Smith, is introduced
with the strictly doo-wop single ʽBelieve Me My Angel / Iʼ, both sides written
by Barrett and featuring a sharp turn towards smoother-sappier from the
original desperate-powerful: however, Annette does have a great voice for
smooth-sappy, with a cooing, buttery falsetto that Arlene was incapable of, and
she performs some impressive vocal gymnastics on both songs that should have
raised some eyebrows back at the time — I have no idea why the single was not a
hit. That said, neither the older material nor the new one are strong enough to
call this period in the band's life underrated: most of the time, the
songwriting is too formulaic and subpar to rank along with the contemporary masterpieces
from the forges of Motown or Atlantic Records. Perfectly listenable and
interesting in light of the presence of two widely different lead vocal styles,
but not much to make it stand out other than just a few more cases of Arlene
Smith's mighty voice.
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